Fenland prints

This time a very seasonal print inspired by the West Norfolk Fenland. In the nine years we have lived here the field in front of the house has had potatoes, sugar beet, oilseed rape, wheat and barley grown on the land. This year it lay fallow until late spring when ploughing, harrowing and general preparation of the soil began. Then there was a two day period of mysterious labour intensive manual planting. Courgettes we thought, especially when the leaves appeared, but then it became apparent that it was a field of pumpkins. Once they began to change colour to the beautiful shade of orangey yellow all the leaves were laboriously snipped off by hand revealing an amazing sea of orange footballs. They’re still swelling up and becoming more intensely coloured by the day and there are simply thousands of them. They’re too good for Halloween carving fodder so we think that they’re all bound for the food industry. I’m certainly going to miss the fantastic shade of orange when they go to wherever pumpkins go when they’re harvested, obviously by hand.