Studio: international art (8.1896)

Maldon as a Sketching Ground

HEYBRIDGE BAblN, NEAR MALDON FROM A DRAWING BY E. W. CHARLTON, A.R.E.

in this way—you do not want it all the year round.
And therefore, if you can make up your mind to
join me here at Maldon in the county of Essex
for a month or so I am sure the change will do
you and your work much good, and I can promise
also that Maldon will be able to supply you with
shipping and shipways and everything in your line
to make your heart glad, with not too much artistic
dirt, but just artistic dirt enough.

In fact the place is a paradise for those of us
who crave for busy river scenes. To take a seat
on Ben's Beach—named after the owner, Ben
Handley, and I warrant you will not be long in the
town before you discover Ben's Beach—to sit there
and wratch an old fashioned swim-headed barge
swinging down with the tide, will soon force you
to produce your sketch-book or rig up your paint-
ing " things."

Just look at the delightful variety of colour ! A
weather-beaten rusty black hull with a green stern
and letters of gold. A tiller of deep yellow finished
with a circle of Indian red fixed in a rudder-post of
brilliant green. All but one of her sails are tanned
and that a bran new jib of staring white. Her
cumbersome sprit is yellow save for a broad band
of azure blue in the centre, and her bowsprit is
tricolour in green, new varnish and white. Figures
clad in crimson and buff bustle all about hauling
at a patched and faded green tarpaulin to cover
her deck load of straw. And hugging her sombre
old sides floats her ship's boat, the light blue inside
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and partly out, tempered with black where she
touches the water, and set off all round with a
narrow strip of ochre yellow half way down the
outside blue. What better can you want ? This
barge is but a specimen of Maldon's models,

Beyond stretch the muddy flats covered with the
grey green tufty grass where sheep delight to roam.
It is somewhat astonishing to a stranger to see how
soon all this swampy ground is covered with water
as the tide flows in and how the sheep stick to it
till the last minute. I have watched the dogs
racing in and out amongst the perfect maze of
channels, collecting the flocks and hurrying them
away from the fast increasing wrater; every yelp
seeming to tell them that if they did not look sharp
they would never pasture there again. And per-
haps at times some do get drowned, for to be
caught on one of those numberless promontories
can mean nothing but transition from sheep to
unedible mutton ; and even a man cannot walk all
over that land for the depth of the mud and the
softness of it. There may be places where it is
possible to pitch an easel, but if you do go across
—and the view of river and town from that side is
very alluring—let me advise you to keep your
boat within easy reach, especially at spring tides.

There is much life on the reaches of the Black-
water, and, as on most tidal rivers, business is more
active at particular periods of the day dependent
upon the state of the tide. Shipping is the life
of Maldon, and though it is to a great extent