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First Friday Walk 4 | April 2nd 2010 from The Edgemoor Inn in Edge
A day of showers, sunshine and rainbows.  Up over the SSSI of Edge Common to Scottsquarr Hill, then through dense beechwoods at Maitland Wood. Overlooking Stroud, Rodborough and Michenhampton Common, we dropped down through more woodland tracks with emerging bluebells and wild garlic, finally returning to Edge, tea and cake.

Artist’s Galleries
Kel Portman’s Gallery

First Friday Walk 5 | March 5th 2010 from The Retreat in Stroud

To be completed

First Friday Walk 3 | February 5th 2010 from The Black Horse in Amberley We dropped down quite steeply onto a well trodden path along the escarpment clad beechwoods overlooking Woodchester before climbing up onto Minchinhampton Common from where we had far reaching views over Stroud, along the Chalford Valley, over Nailsworth and along the Woodchester Valley. We then followed iron age earthworks before returning via the picturesque hill village of Amberley.

Artist’s Galleries

Kel Portman’s Gallery

Richard Keating’s Gallery

Ian Peter’s Gallery

Lucy Guenot’s Gallery

Lucy Guenot’s Gallery2

Tom Keating’s Gallery

More Galleries shortly

John West’s Gallery

First Friday Walk 2 took place on the 4th December. We walked along some of Stroud’s rivers and canal, very much a Stroud Water Walk, we experienced decay and change as we walked on paths that marked the edges of wild, urban and industrial.

Images from the Walk

Multiple Exposures made by the Group

Richard Keating

Two scanned and manipulated drawings and digital photographs.

‘Tree canopy and River Frome at Capel Mill’

‘Tree canopy and River Frome at Frome Banks’

Lucy Guenot

Tom Keating

Words from the Walk Collected by the Group

Winding veins flow Victorian shame Rushing water reflecting the sky Bare tress grow Decline forged signs Industrious heritage

The first of our series of First Friday Walks took place on 6th November, elevating us up to  700′  to Painswick Beacon and then on through the Spoonbed valley, west of Painswick.

Along with other things, Participants were invited to select a ‘found object’ from their surroundings near the beginning of the walk and later asked to respond to it by writing a sentence in just 17 words.  Here are some of the results – more material to come:

Penny Prince Brightly coloured Ms Manicure lost -  rain sodden, windswept beneath the Beacon’s high point Lying -   incongruous companionship

Lucy Guenot Fluorescent plastic tee shouts, “See me!”, but my eye is transfixed by hedge curves across wet fields

Tom Keating We look out over Gloucester flat sunken ground moulded by water more than the mist can hold

Kel Portman this small stone fragment perhaps lay near this wall when Romans came, bringing pizza to pacify Picts

Richard Keating Harvey, nose to ground, running and fetching, will chase this ball, sharing the landscape, making me human.

Images from the Walk

Richard Keating images compiled after the walk by Richard. These images are made from scanned drawings overlaid with digital photographs and all manipulated in Adobe Photoshop. The drawings in the first image were made while walking about 100 paces towards the hedgerow.

‘Approaching Hedgerow Trees’

‘First Rains of November’

Tom Keating

‘we look out over Gloucester’

Kel Portman

‘by the dry-wall where I know many stones, we notice textures of the trees…..’