Ye Olde Village Pond. An Illustration from the book entitled “Drying Up” in the River Friend Series
NFS. Artist Code 1905. Ye Olde Village Pond. Completed 9th June 2019. Original water colour and pen and ink on Aquarelle Arches 100% cotton rag 140lb paper
This water coloour and pen and ink painting is an illustration for Book 1 in the series of River Friend books and shows an old type of village pond where people would meet and animals and travellers could come to drink. Each village and hamlet would have had a pond of some sort. The title of the book is DRYING UP, being the first Book of the River Friend series and it was published in September 2019. It covers the processes and consequences of a river “drying up”. Rivers are fascinating. Lots of things about them are fascinating: their plants, their water, their banks…and the use and management by people.
What is the worst that can happen to a river? That it vanishes, and all its life vanishes with it: the people, the plants, the animals—not just the fish, but the crops, the cattle, the forests, the everything. All are made mostly of water. Look around—what is in that leaf, that spider, that deer, that petal?—WATER! And although many animals and (mostly tiny) plants live in the sea in salt water, it is the freshwater in the land, derived from rain, which supports us and our natural resources.
By over-abstracting, polluting, and damaging our wonderful, unique rivers and streams, they now support a fraction of the life that they should. This little book is all about the enormous impact our demanding habits have on the delicate ecology of rivers. The worst threat to our environment, even when compared with the loss of rain forests, climate change, and air pollution, is from the loss of fresh water—without which, ALL LIFE DISAPPEARS!
