Root Cellar
This is one of High and Dry‘s roots. Root Cellar, ink on kaolin-coated board, 12 x 16 inches / 34x44x3cm framed
This is one of High and Dry‘s roots. Root Cellar, ink on kaolin-coated board, 12 x 16 inches / 34x44x3cm framed
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…
Continue reading High and Dry (Corner Ash)
Danebury Hill, between Andover and Stockbridge in Hampshire, has featured in my work before (most recently in Deep Dark Wood). It is topped with a significant iron age hill fort, managed by the county council, and is blessed with many lovely trees, most of which…
Continue reading Shaded Path
Cernunnos, the horned one, is the Celtic god of the forest. Resplendent in autumn’s riches, this lordly beech seems a worthy successsor, high on the slope with its heavy, curled antler-branches. Beech frequently grows fabulous shapes and it is to emphasise these that I use…
Continue reading Cernnunos -SOLD
Natural erosion of the chalky soil frequently reveals the roots of trees on the Hampshire hangers, but this beech is an extreme case. Immense, intriguingly intertwined, the muscular, naked root structure forms an intricate lattice roof over an intimate hollowed-out cavern. Somebody has fetched branches…
Continue reading Palisade – SOLD
Overhang was worked up using photographs that I took a couple of years ago near the hamlet of Empshott Green in Hampshire. It’s a small place, accessed by small, steep roads set into pale, friable cliff faces of malm rock. These cliffs, riven with tree…
Continue reading Overhang – SOLD
One of the blessings of lockdown was the necessity of restricting my explorations to the local area. It seemed as if the whole village and its dog were heading out along the more obvious paths into the (rather lovely) local hills, and so I went…
Continue reading Underash – SOLD
The River Test flows quietly by itself through much of rural North Hampshire. Relatively few public footpaths coincide with it for any distance, which is probably no surprise when you consider how valuable the river’s banks are in terms of fishing rights. Towns and villages,…
Continue reading Backwater
The River Test has its notional source in the downs a mile from the village of Overton in north Hampshire. Last September, I used public footpaths to follow the river between its source and Overton, where it once powered several mills. The source itself was…
Continue reading Idyll (with tyre swing) -SOLD
This is a managed beechwood on the edge of parkland near Basingstoke, Hampshire. The drawing takes a different tack to most of my recent depictions of beech trees; instead of idiosyncratic convolutions or showy colours, here is a quiet, peaceful orderliness… Beechwood 16″ x 12″,…
Continue reading Beechwood – SOLD