Mary, Mary, quite contrary,How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row. The dainty plants that are “all in a row” in front of the main tree brought the quoted nursery rhyme to my mind and…
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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″
I decided to make a large drawing of the long tree roots in Folly Wood Gorge, using a full imperial sheet of watercolour (approx. 56x75cm) paper and coloured inks. I exagerrated the colours and indulged in a bit of careful splatting (an excuse to add…
Continue reading Folly Wood’s legendary roots (part 2)
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…
Continue reading Folly Wood’s legendary roots (part 1)
This third beech tree in Selborne Hanger has a remarkable little cavern beneath its exposed roots, probably due to erosion. The roots form an open lattice – a “filigree” – over the space on the uphill side. The tree is at the foot of the hanger,…
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This very distinctive and characterful beech tree sits on the lip of a hollow in the hillside at Selborne, its triangular mass of exposed roots gracefully supporting it. I started to draw it on A3 paper but it didn’t feel right, so I switched to…
Continue reading Enigma – SOLD
The village of Selborne in Hampshire is known as the former home (now a museum) of the eighteenth century naturalist Gilbert White. It also has a rather splendid beech hanger (a hanger is a wood on a steep slope). I recently spent some lovely time in…
Continue reading Selborne Beech – SOLD