Old Wood

Posted on 19/08/201419/08/2014 by Alastair

I don’t know how much, if any, of Troserch Woodland is ancient but it is a beautiful place to walk and the cycle of growth and decay is inevitable in all woodland let alone anywhere else.

Below are two more images that didn’t make it into the StillWalks video below – “Troserch Woodland Walk”

All StillWalks videos are available to buy as High Definition (HD) downloads. Just click on the Shop drop down menu button. Or you can pay what you like for this video (normal price £3.00) with the donate button below and I will send you a link to download this featured video in HD. Please allow up to 24 hours for delivery of the download link.

Why pay for a StillWalks video? See five good reasons below.

Five good reasons to buy a StillWalks video:

High Quality Videos
Anytime, anywhere
Therapy at your fingertips
Watching, Walking and Listening
Health and wellbeing

Continue reading→

Woodland Walk Video

Posted on 17/08/201417/08/2014 by Alastair

“Troserch Woodland Walk” is a StillWalks video I produced one early morning last Summer. I was looking through the images from this production recently and found a number that I like but that did not make it into the video. I thought I would showcase them this week, so watch this space!

Why pay for a StillWalks video? See five good reasons below.

Five good reasons to buy a StillWalks video:

High Quality Videos
Anytime, anywhere
Therapy at your fingertips
Watching, Walking and Listening
Health and wellbeing

Continue reading→

Retreating from the Hurricane

Posted on 11/08/201411/08/2014 by Alastair

Yesterday we felt the last remaining vestiges of Hurricane Bertha in the form of a brief sandblasting on the Millennium Park footpath on the seafront at Llanelli.

We were not long out of the car before we changed our minds about a place to go for a walk and headed for the woodland walk up to the reservoir in Swiss Valley instead.

The sand being blown off the beach felt like needles on the skin and although it wasn’t raining at the time, the locals clearly knew not to venture on the seafront when the wind is up as the place was empty of people. Swiss Valley on the other hand was relatively busy!

Walking and Drawing – Thoughts and Observations

Posted on 03/08/201403/08/2014 by Alastair

Following the production walk for the “Breakers Walk” StillWalks video (see yesterday’s post), I recently spent a day with three of the other artists involved in the research project “Walk and Draw for Health and Wellbeing”. The project, led by Cathy Treadaway from CARIAD, involved us on this occasion, all going for a walk through Cwm Nash woods down to the seashore and the cliffs on the South Wales coast and spending some time drawing.

I took a small sketchbook and an iPad. I have been working with drawing and iPads on the recent Josef Herman Art Foundation Schools Award project for 2014 and wanted to continue with my assessment of the iPad as another instrument for drawing. I have not reached a clear conclusion about this medium yet, other than to say it is quite different to other methods of recording observation.

The one thing the iPad has in common with all visual recording methods is that you still have to look. You can, of course, use the iPad camera to take a photo and then use that image to “trace” aspects of the subject but, to my mind, with that approach you lose the advantages gained in looking . . . or do you? After all, observation has to be used in order to decide on the photograph to be taken and that is an essential element of StillWalks.

What are the advantages of visually recording observations? What are advantages of the different methods of visually recording observations? And what are the disadvantages of not recording observations?

More thoughts on this to come . . .

Breakers Walk – A New StillWalks Video

Posted on 02/08/201402/08/2014 by Alastair

This past week I have been showing a taster of this new StillWalks video. Now, here is the video itself. Please watch and if you can, use the expand button in the corner of the video to watch it full screen.

The video is nine minutes long, which is longer than many other StillWalks videos, but I hope that you will appreciate the reasoning for this and enjoy its full length. Comments are welcome.

The video was produced as part of a research project with Dr Cathy Treadaway for CARIAD at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Layers and Layers – Rocky Strata

Posted on 01/08/201401/08/2014 by Alastair

The cliffs at Cwm Nash and further along the South Wales coast on the Bristol Channel display some great geological features. It is a popular place to enjoy the breakers as well as the rocks but you have to be cautious about the continually eroding cliffs.

The evidence for this is strewn along the foot of the precipice in various sizes, from small rocks which would still do you some damage, to huge chunks of cliff that must way several tons!

Coastal Features

Posted on 31/07/201431/07/2014 by Alastair

The stony beach at Cwm Nash on the Bristol Channel coast of South Wales is made up of some pretty large stones – it is not shingle! This makes it difficult to walk, but perhaps there is some compensation for this in the amazing flat rock strata at the foot of the cliffs.

To see these you will have to watch the new StillWalks video, “Breakers Walk”, which will be available to view on Saturday. The sights and sounds of the woodland and waves ar, as ever, unique to the time ad place they were recorded.