Ground Level
A closer look at one of the spectacular beeches, and its exposed roots, at Snelsmore Common (see alse Epic, Chorus Line and Reciprocate). Ink on kaolin-coated board, 16 x 12″
Category: Monochrome
Decomposure – SOLD
I’m not entirely sure what these mushrooms are, but, as they are growing on a dead tree stump, it’s reasonable to assume that they’re part of the forest’s recycling process, promoting rot or decomposition. The title is an invented word, intended to evoke this idea,…
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Folly Wood’s legendary roots (part 1)
There’s a ridge in Wiltshire not far from Devizes, that has a gap in it, a place where the bedrock cracked, perhaps. A track (it’s a bridleway) passes through the gap. The sides are high, and trees grow on the chalky high ground. It’s a…
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Root Cellar
This is one of High and Dry‘s roots. Root Cellar, ink on kaolin-coated board, 12 x 16 inches / 34x44x3cm framed
High and Dry (Corner Ash)
There is a byway open to all traffic, or BOAT, near Alton called Water Lane. It is, for much of its length, a sunken lane or holloway – that is, a route lower than the surrounding land surface. Holloways can be created by the passage…
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Chorus Line – SOLD
Exposed tree roots fascinate me. They are secrets revealed, intricately interwoven, the manifold anchors for massive entities – and the forest’s unexpected means of communication. These beech roots cascade down the steepest of slopes while the trees that they belong to do their best to…
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Recurve
I tried something a little bit different with this one. It seemed to have an awful lot of stuff going on on the ground. In the foreground, this was kind of okay; the leaf litter included large sweet chestnut leaves that made it all quite…
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Hedgerow
This is a celebration of the less obvious. Hedges around fields are a commonplace feature of the English landscape and, while I think most of us are aware of their importance in terms of diversity and wildlife, we probably don’t think too hard about the…
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Interior 1 (Woodcott)
This is a drawing, on paper, of half of an ancient churchyard yew which has split into two parts. We’re looking at the hollowed-out inside of the tree, with what looks like several well established aerial roots. The tree is fascinating, with an array fascinating…
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Stumped
This is one of my favourite leaning hornbeams, but rather than focussing on the echoing angles of the trees looking down the line (as in Conduit), my attention was drawn to the ravaged remnant of a former tree, the stump in the foreground. The characteristic…
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