I went out for a walk to visit a mermaid and came across a field full of mediterranean miniature donkeys. The mermaid was a carving on the door-surround of the tiny Norman church of St. Swithun’s in Nately Scures, near Hook in Hampshire. She’d lost…
Continue reading Donkey Throng – SOLD
When I read that Sidley Wood, an SSSI north of Andover and not very far from me, has “many stands of ancient hornbeam coppice”, I immediately added it to my list of places to visit. There is a footpath running through the length of the…
Continue reading Understories – SOLD
The hamlet of Woodcott seems to consist of a farm and a church, next to one another on a one track road in an obscure corner of north Hampshire. The tiny church of St. James has a rather splendid ancient yew in the churchyard, hollowed…
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A woodbank is a linear boundary around or within a wood, marked by a low earthen bank. It’s a feature often associated with ancient woodland, and it’s not uncommon to find trees growing on it. These two trees, an ash and a silver birch, are…
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This is the third in the “mini-series” of close-ups (Beyond, depicting an ancient oak tree, was the first, followed by Coalesce, which showed an ancient sweet chestnut). This tree isn’t ancient (but it probably got to a decent age for its species, which I think…
Continue reading Echo Chamber
A close-up on the fascinating whorls and twists at the base of an ancient sweet chestnut trunk. When I first started this tree project, I knew that it could be huge, and so I set a limit on it. I would only consider trees that…
Continue reading Coalesce
This drawing includes the same beech trees featured in Epic, in a wider landscape and in a warmer season. While there is still a dramatic air to the picture, it is softer and seems appropriate for a fairy tale. The foreground suggests, to me, the…
Continue reading Babes in the Wood – SOLD
This is the first in a new series of drawings focussing on the surface of a tree trunk. The full title was “The Devil is beyond the Detail” (as opposed to being in it), but I preferred the shorter version. The picture is based on…
Continue reading Beyond
Pigment inks on kaolin-coated board, 11 x 14 inches. The row of hornbeams viewed through the crook of the end tree. I’ve used a palette based on secondary colours, which has an unearthly feel, echoing the odd angles and shapes thrown by the trees.
I love the twist that sweet chestnut develops as it grows: an elegant russet swirl of a tree, here set off beautifully by the cool lines of its silver birch partner. This is a picture that couldn’t not be made: colour and form and movement…
Continue reading Vortex -SOLD