It’s
been freezing today. It was just the perfect weather to take fifteen students
up to the Lickey Hills in Worcestershire, on a drawing trip this morning, which
is what I foolishly did. Having gone to a bit of trouble organizing things I
was loathe to cancel, and to be honest early this morning, the sun was shining
bright and it seemed like it was going to be a nice crisp March day, just right
for walking the woods sketchbook and camera in hand. I couldn’t have been more wrong. When we got
there, the milder Birmingham breeze had been replaced by a biting bitterly cold
wind up on the higher ground. It was long before everyone beat a hasty retreat
to the nearby Visitor Centre café to warm up.
I
was really fed up with the students though, as, despite the cold weather, most
of them in a typical teenage way had dressed so poorly for the outdoors in
flimsy tee shirts and the thinnest of jackets, if they wore a jacket at all,
that it made working impossible. I was determined to lead by example and I
headed off with my sketchbook and I-pad and made these two studies, the second
one finished at home from some drawings I had made. My example failed, and most
of them stayed put in the café. I felt they had wasted my time and their own as
we headed back onto the minibus, and like the grumpy old man that I felt, I
told them so….
