An English Fishing Village

by Geoff Brown

Title

An English Fishing Village

Artist

Geoff Brown

Medium

Drawing - Pencil Drawing On Paper

Description

I can't take the credit for this wonderful pencil drawing of Clovelly, an English fishing village in North Devon, United Kingdom, because my father, Geoff Brown, drew in 1997 when he began drawing for the first time. (All I added digitally was some sepia tones to create an interesting mood). He was 80 at the time, and now he's 98! Recently he started up drawing again since he moved to live near me. Yeah dad!

Clovelly, is a classic picture-postcard English fishing village on the east coast of England, where this is the only main street through town. No motor vehicles are permitted through these beautiful cobbled stone streets... only donkeys and mules!

Clovelly used to be a fishing village and in 1901 had a population of 621. It is a cluster of largely wattle and daub cottages on the sides of a rocky cleft; its steep main street descends 400 feet (120 m) to the pier, too steeply to allow wheeled traffic. Sledges are used for the movement of goods. The quaint street is lined with houses, a small number of shops, a cafe and a public house. All Saints' Church, restored in 1866, is late Norman, containing several monuments to the Cary family, Lords of the Manor for 600 years.

Unusually, the village is still privately owned and has been associated with only three families since the middle of the 13th century, nearly 800 years. The scenery has been captured by artists for its richness of colour, especially in the separately accessed and separated Clovelly Court and along The Hobby, a road cut through the woods and overlooking the sea. The South West Coast Path National Trail runs from the top of the village and the section from Clovelly to Hartland Quay is particularly spectacular (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovelly).

As I looked at this picturesque English fishing village with the cobblestone street, I was reminded of a time in my life when the walls of my heart had become hardened like the stone buildings and cobblestone street in this picture because of unforgiveness. I had unknowingly closed the door of my heart to certain members of my family in order to protect it from further pain...

But God didn't design my heart or your heart to function this way. Just as our physical hearts need an inflow as well as an outflow of lifeblood in both directions or we will die, so our spiritual hearts need to both receive of His love, and let it flow out of us to others, or we will die!

"Love one another as I have loved you" then becomes a life-giving command of Jesus to us as we realize that God created us to be receivers as well as givers of His love and grace! It's how He made us. But we can't give of His love and grace to others if we haven't first received His love and grace for ourselves.♥

* Top Finisher in "Buildings" contest 9/29/15
* Top Finisher in "Pencil Sketch Only" contest 3/14/16

Uploaded

October 17th, 2013

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