Orbis Naturalis

 Pittville Pump Rooms and the park that surrounds it provide a green space for locals. I myself, walk through it almost everyday on my way to campus and onwards to the town centre. The well-trodden footpaths are becoming so familiar that I could re-trace my steps, whether it be light, dark, in conversation or on my bike, with ease. The walk this week however changed my route slightly as I got to explore the meadow within the golf course where at this time of year, thorns and thistles are its main feature. I loved the undulating hills and gullies that creates a more naturalistic landscape than the confined expanse of the field opposite. You can imagine also, how the variation in levels provide shelter for wildlife where they can hide from predators and people. Intersecting these miniature valleys are winding grass paths that weave their way through following desire lines. A 'desire line' from my perspective is made from people walking the most efficient route across a space, lik...

WALK 2 - CHELTENHAM SPA STATION This weeks' walk took me above street level; an old railway turned greenway where pedestrians, cyclists and scooters share a wide path that intersects the town all the way to the train station. I left Pittville at 8am - an early start! Despite my weariness, the morning sunlight arose my spirit and the surprise of a football kicked astray by school children. I admired the beautiful long shadows created by the tree trunks, their leaves looking even more golden in the light, the shades of Autumn shining bright. I felt refreshed from a commute un-spoiled by busy main roads minus the quiet hum of the power station at the start of the walk. I quite liked the contrast of the industrial pylons alongside the manicured playground sitting just outside a new housing estate, the avenues lined with yellow-tinted birch trees. I wrote a poem to describe my journey to try and capture the mix of urban and natural. 14th October 8am Golden swathes of crisp sunlight Scho...

'Walking The Line' - River Chelt Walk completed: 29/9/20 My Thoughts/ Reflection of exercise: To walk a line is to document your experience of a journey through any medium and method. In this case, I chose to make zines in order to be able to quickly sketch what I was seeing. Then afterwards I could layer and draw inspiration from them to make up an A1 sheet of paper. Overall, once I started to notice the rich details of the plant life and how people interacted with the space, I found it quite overwhelming; almost a sensory overload of information to note down. Therefore it became a case of selecting particular objects to take interest in versus other less important details. Hence why my final presentation of the walk is a series of loose lines layered together in a chaotic sequence, starting from top left and splaying across the page. My initial idea was to encapsulate the Cubist belief that an object can be represented by showing all possible viewpoints at once. By having mul...