Art Landscape and Literature Archives - Honey Bee Barn

Olive Green

Olive Green, one of the most elusive of all the greens. The colour olive green always seems to be the colour of the trees in the distance but close up, the olive green seems to slip away and the greens that are left are altogether brighter and lighter. Green is the colour that most us…

Through The Woods by H.E Bates Through the Woods by H.E Bates. When he was a child the writer Herbert Bates wanted to be a painter. He describes the paintings that he enthusiastically produced as being of ‘horrific badness’. So the introduction to this book, written by Laura Beatty tells us. I am so glad…

My first nature journal. I have wanted to keep a nature journal for a number of years but lacked confidence in drawing skills to have a go. There are some beautiful nature journals on social media, drawn by professional artists, mine will not look like theirs. However my skills at observation have improved over the…

Discovering the Biodiversity Heritage Library. The amazing Biodiversity Heritage Library is one of the most astonishing resources for those with an interest in biodiversity. It is an open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives and operates globally for the benefit of all. It is a consortium of natural history, botanical, and research libraries…

I have never heard of a walking artist until I saw the artwork of Hamish Fulton. As soon as I saw the work of Hamish Fulton and read what had inspired him to create it, it made sense. He considers that the walking itself, taking nothing away, is art in itself. ‘walking is an artform…

Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie

‘Surfacing’ by Kathleen Jamie. Surfacing by Kathleen Jamie Published by Sort of Books ISBN 97811908745828 When my son said ‘mum, you’ve got to read this book, it’s amazing’, I bought it straight away. He knows me so well. This is a collection of twelve essays drawn from a long view back through time and place.…

Mistle Thrush

The Mistle Thrush, the song bird of Winter. Advent Day 13 The Mistle Thrush accompanies us through the Winter days and its scratchy tuneful song can be heard high up in the canopy even when wild weather blows through. For this reason the bird is also known as ‘Stormcock’ but then it has a number…

Icicles

The magic of icicles and frosts, sparkling jewels of Winter. Advent Calendar 11 Waking up to a sunny Winter morning sparkling with icicles and frost are nature’s gifts to us when the days seem short and dark. Rows of icicles hanging suspended like tubular bells show off the simple artistry of nature. They stay with…

Beauty in snowflakes

The snowflake is a uniquely beautiful structure created from water. How do snowflakes form? Compare one snowflake with another. No two snowflakes are identical yet all snowflakes are created from the same simple compound that is water. Two hydrogen atoms combining with one oxygen. How then is it possible that they are all different? ‘How…

Music and Landscape

The heritage of music and landscape. Music and landscape both have the capacity to move us to tears. Walk alone in Spring across open fields when the sky larks are springing off the newly drilled soil. There comes a moment when Vaughn Williams ‘Lark Rise Ascending’ imposes itself. And at that point it is almost…

The Long Man of Wilmington

A country walk to see the Long Man of Wilmington. The long man of Wilmington suddenly appears before us. We drive along the road, through the very pretty village of Wilmington. All eyes search him out and then suddenly, there he stands, almost vertically beside . There is magic in the illusion though. As the…

Richard Jefferies natural historian, was a close observer of nature and prosaic writer. The writing of Richard Jefferies, natural historian, deserves a special place on everyones book shelf. His lyrical, almost poetic account of the British countryside and rural life has a magic all of its own. Richard Jefferies was born in 1842 at Coate…

A Great Oak Tree by John Constable. In 1801 John Constable drew a chalk image of an oak tree. This drawing gives me inspiration because it is an outdoor sketch. The young artist was learning to observe the countryside and in particular, the form of the trees. Outdoor sketching, can be challenging thing but it…

What are the holloways? Scattered across the countryside of Britain are old track ways, the holloway lanes, ancient routes across the countryside. Some of these ancient paths were stabilized with asphalt but many were left as un-metaled tracks. In certain parts of southern England, these track-ways have deepened, hollowed out by centuries of traffic to…

Nature poetry

Nature and Mary Oliver. Mary Oliver poet and maker of magic inside words. Many poets take inspiration from nature. I made my discovery of Mary Oliver’s poetry when I began to take a daily walk in a local woodland and found a peace and sense of fulfillment that had been missing from my very hectic…

The web of the Orb Spider

What nature inspires art, could it be the orb spider? Many artists and writers use nature to inspire their work. I felt inspired by the orb spider on my walk in the field today. It made me think how nature inspires art. The landscape artist looks to the shape and texture of the landscape and…

Snake-Stones a Hampshire name for Ammonites

We gathered snake stones on the corrugated shore at Charmouth. Just as hundreds of children, over hundreds of years have done, we gathered our precious little finds and took them home, turning them over and over in our pockets, little snake stones. Some still held fast in the parent rock but escaped, others caught in…

The apple tree

The Importance of the Apple Tree. As we creep towards the shorter darker days of the year and the festival of Halloween, it is a good time to reflect upon how our ancestors viewed the switch from light to dark and their interpretation of it through the plants and landscape around them. Samhain is a…