Downland: A Farm and A Village

Well written and illustrated by expert watercolour artist. 

During the 1970s, Roger Coleman and his family moved from London to  remote farming village on the Sussex downs. There, he spent a year recording the life around him as it changed through the seasons. This strikingly realistic, even stark series of watercolours speaks eloquently of the realities that confront farmers everywhere: the harsh and unpredictable weather, the hard work of farming, the risks involved in day-to-day living with the land. Accompanying the artist's paintings of the people and places around him is a wonderfully personal text that enables every reader to share the author's experience--that of an outsider, a city dweller, an artist whose love of light and colour gives him  a special vision of his surroundings. This is an affecting and beautiful book, rich in specific detail yet universal in its perceptions.