This fantastic sunken lane has provided me with subjects for several drawings since I first visited it in January of this year. Knave, Knoll, Shadow Dance, and now The Low Road, are all set on Church Lane in Witley near Godalming, Surrey. This, however, is the scene that I went back a second time for (my photographs from the first visit were too blurred to be of any use), in March. It seemed to summarise the location.
It was surprisingly colourful considering the time of year. The rock here is, I think, still greensand but it looks yellow and, at times, blue-grey rather than the white of East Hampshire’s greensand or the slight pink tinge that I noted in Wiltshire. Then there is the vibrancy of the green moss and the red-brown of the beech leaves. I decided to use colour in this drawing in part because I wanted to make it distinct from Mauditt and Multistorey.
On the top of the bank to the left in this picture is a footpath (a far safer place to be larking about with a camera than in the middle of the road). That’s the point of comparison for the title, and the subject for another drawing…
Ye’ll tak the high road and I’ll tak the low road
Traditional, The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond (song), amended
And I’ll be inScotlandWitley afore ye
(It’s an awfully long way to Scotland from Surrey, especially if you’re on foot.)
18 x 24″, ink on kaolin-coated board
