A couple of weekends ago I made a trip to South Oxfordshire, in search of country cottages to draw.
In this part of the world, East Hagbourne is a favourite spot but on the way there I stopped off at West Hagbourne, another village which also has some very nice cottages and vernacular architecture.
It was cold, cold enough that it was relevant whether I sat in the sunshine to draw or the shade. On this occasion I chose the shade as it was the only way to get a decent view without sitting in the road. My subject was Ivy Cottage, a slightly run-down farm cottage next to the village pond. I believe this has been bought and is going to be done up and that is probably a good thing. The cottage had a certain amount of charm as it was but places like this need to be lived in and looked after to fight off decay.
Anyway, the changing light and cold were the two main constraints when drawing this time, so my sketch had to be fairly rapid.
Below is my view, my sketch in situ and also a slightly tidied-up scanned result.
If you are interested here are a couple more posts about previous sketches.
OxfordArtist 