Artist Beverley Thornley recently launched her book ‘Notes on a River’ at the Talgarth Walking Festival.

‘Notes on a River - Afon Llynfi’ contains sketches and small stories from the river which is a tributary of the Wye.

The book started as a lockdown project, and is the first Beverley has had published. Following the relaxing of lockdown measures, Beverley and her husband decided to trace the route of the Afon Llynfi, a tributary of the River Wye near Talgarth and Bronllys.

Whilst tracing the route, she drew up some sketches and picked up materials to make paint with including Sandstone found along the river.

During the next lockdown that followed, Beverley did some small paintings in a concertina sketchbook using inks from materials found by the river but she said: “There was no way anyone would buy all that so I decided I would make a book. It contains both my small paintings plus a bit of text about the adventures of exploring this little river, starting with its little springs to where it meets the Wye.”

As an artist living in Llanfihangel Tal-y-llyn and London, Beverley’s main passion is collecting materials from a place, particularly geological stuff from a place, and patterns from a place, and using them to depict the place that they have come from.

“By using the materials I hope they speak about the place they come from,” said Beverley.

“The Red Sandstone from the Afon Llynfi River is a really good rock to use because it yields so many different colours as it’s not always red, sometimes it’s quite purpley or blue but it’s easy to make as it stains everything.”

After some persuasion, Beverley decided to launch the book at Talgarth Walking Festival, and led a walk down part of the Afon Llynfi.

Talking about her first published book, Beverley said: “It’s been quite a learning curve really. I’ve been really lucky to work with a graphic designer who I share a studio with and she does high quality work and we’ve gradually worked on this over the past year.

“I’m really pleased with the way it’s turned out and really pleased with the positive feedback from the local people. They’ve been really positive about it, including some of the artists.

“I sold it at a couple of evening events and I’m selling it for as cheap as I can really and all the funds are going to Friends of the River Wye and they’ve been really supportive and came on the walk that I did. They helped me launch the book really.”

The Friends of the River Wye charity help defend and champion the River Wye, which suffers from pollution and the effects of climate change.

The artist is trying to encourage people to buy it for £10 with all proceeds going to Friends of the River Wye charity, who helped Beverley launch the book.

‘Notes on a River - Afon Llynfi’ is available in Greening Books in Hay, and Llangorse Community Shop.