Continuing Waterhead’s link with Ambleside and District Art Society, for the next months we are featuring a painting by local artist, Liz Savage, inspired by a meeting with a few Herdwick ewes.
Driving down a local country lane, a gang of stroppy Herdwick ewes (the teddy bears of the ovine world) appeared, nonchalantly strolling along, taking the air and wayside grass. Stopping and turning with a degree of ‘attitude’, they challenged the car to come closer. Sheep don’t make great artists’ models as their concept of stillness is limited. However, always with a camera handy when out and about pays dividends in close encounters like these. The resulting photo inspired the first of Liz’s charcoal drawings of the famous Lake District Herwick Sheep and, in true sheepish style, others followed suit. Yet, it’s astonishing how different sheep are from each other. ‘The Farm Watch Team’ was a group of Herdigirls brought together for the occasion.
For Liz, art was a subject of pleasure and relaxation at school in Stretford, the ‘O’ level exam passing almost unnoticed! Thereafter, the subject vanished from formal education, re-surfacing some 30 years later following teacher training in Liverpool, a spell teaching PE in Wiltshire and then years as an outdoor technician at Ambleside’s Charlotte Mason College. An elderly neighbour sought company at a local art lecture with Ambleside and District Art Society, an event that re-ignited Liz’s participation in drawing and painting. Inspirational society members have played a pivotal role in her education as an artist, sparking different ideas and introducing new skills.
While Liz’s charcoal drawings of Herwicks have been well supported, she prefers to dabble in different media and finds suitably unusual and quirky subjects to tackle.She’s worked in watercolour, acrylic, oil and is currently trying her hand at pastels – in between walking her collie twice a day, regular canoeing sessions and the general household chores …
Over the next few months, guests at Waterhead hotel will be greeted with Liz’s art on display in the hotel’s reception.
To contact Liz about her work, email her at easvage@icloud.com