Don’t know why but I repainted an existing new painting today. It was the last one painted in 2020 but looking at it every day hanging on the wall convinced that it was too weak. So I’ve painted it overall in ink again, and spoilt it.
Least said better mended, I think, but it certainly wasn’t meant to finish up looking a bit like an anaemic target. The colours aren’t right either and the prehistoric field system underlying the colours has been lost (though it is there); so what I’m going to do is either ditch it or re-use the canvas for something else or try to make something of this image by drastic deep-modification, starting with sandpaper.
Meanwhile, helping look after the NT flock of rare breed sheep continues to delight, even though 20 of them humiliated me yesterday by ambling out into the road while I was driving the car through the gate into their field. They spread out along the road, browsing the verges while a nice little traffic queue built up in both directions. They then decided that the front lawn of a country house opposite looked attractive and were only separated from it when some workmen enjoying the view of this ovine farce from their scaffolding on the house descended and eased them back down the drive, across the road and back into their field. Everyone was extremely good-natured about this ridiculous incident and a good time was had by all – except this writer.
One of the sheep which did not join in this escapade was this magnificent Jacob ram. We call him ‘Shaman’ for obvious reasons; he is our only Jacob. In previous years he has been dignified and aloof, always standing back from the rest of the flock when we fed them. This year he has had a personality change and now joins in with the hoi poloi as it were, using his horns to good effect to grab his share of the food nuts we sparingly scatter on the ground while we count and inspect each sheep individually. He is not as doleful as his patchwork fleece makes out, and I have now convinced him that it is quite safe, and not altogether undignified, to eat from my hand. Here he is fronted by parts of two Whitefaced Woodlands, with a rather pregnant Herdwick in the background. As a work of art he is on an altogether different plane from my miserable offering from a West Penwith landscape.
