Title/headline . . . . . . How Peter began painting rural scenes is simple, even if it sounds daft.By : Deborah Susan Jones : EditorFoxes
. . . . to my surprise are less plentiful in my experience in the
countryside than in urban areas and although we have Foxes that prowl
our garden, as it is next to a wood and plentiful prey, and I even saw
one walking across the road in front of the studio in the moonlight, it
is hard as a rule to just see or hear them, whereas when I had my
studio in London they not only were plentiful, but even lived in a shed
used by Wimbledon Theatre for props storage that was situated at the
end of my neighbour's garden.The
above scene was therefore something of a surprise and I can only think
that the place I saw it, at the back of a Church in All Stretton, backs
onto countryside and the hills around the Cardingmill Valley and I
assume, attracted by the smell of food from a dustbin, it felt that a
quick rumage was less work and effort than chasing after birds beyond
the gate at the end of the Churchard.As
with many an encounter with wildlife, it is a very quick, abrupt
affair, a swish of tail, a rustle and you are left wondering if it
really happened at all, which is one of the nice things about recording
these events, it fixes them in time, and reminds me of them.Often,
the encounter with a Fox is disappointing, they tend to be small
creatures and in fact their average lifespan is typically quite short,
perhaps only a couple of years sometimes and encounters with traffic
are possibly more a problem than predators.This
was a mature creature it seemed to me, unusually big, though surprise
encounter is always startling and robs one of precious seconds in
experiencing the event so I try hard to take-in everything as
efficiently as I can though in this case I was mid-conversation with
friends who had come up from London and I was mid-flow of explaining a
few things about the area including the Lawley Hill opposite so it was
"a flurry of fur" to say the least.I
recall bright fur, a wildly swishing tail that seemed huge, and a lot
of tugging at some plastic on a dustbin rim that later inspection
turned out to be a crisp (potato chip) bag, Walkers Crisps to be exact!So
there you have it - spontaneous observation, which is what's nice about
creating Wildlife Art for me, the surprise event, which is a constant
source of enjoyment.The
area around my studio is absolutely teeming with Wildlife and wherever
I go my eyes are like a video camera with no off button, the movie is
endless. . . . .By : Deborah Susan Jones : Editor
