Back in the South West

Great to be back in Devon again; staying with friends and visiting my old haunts. I crossed the Tamar into Cornwall today, had lunch at a decent little pub and made some drawings in this beautiful place but in the end it confirmed why I left in the first place – the coast aside, it just doesn’t have the wild monumentality of many of the northern landscapes I love working in. Also, I find Devon a bit claustrophobic  with its narrow lanes bordered with steep banks so that you don’t really get to see much of the countryside

On the up side there’s the wonderful Tamar bridge built by the great I.K. Brunel in 1859

and hundreds of ruins from the industrial age that have mellowed and now add immeasurably to a landscape they once marred:

Anyway, here’s a drawing of the village I used to live in in Devon: