2020

Cantos

This series of drawings began in 2019 and is likely to be added to from time to time. Using Chinese brushes, feathers, European brushes and twigs, the Cantos develop intuitively – one mark leading to another and another … my hope is that they are interesting in themselves, and as evocations of weather, movement, flowing forms meeting more static shapes … perhaps there are echoes of Daoist ideas about natural harmony, the interaction of yin and yang, the universe as endless motion

Old beech tree

I encountered this old beech tree on a Dartmoor walk – like many old trees its roots were like fingers holding fast to the boulders on the bank at the side of the track … over the centuries boulder and tree grow more and more alike – often moss-covered they are bound together, holding fast against the erosive forces of wind, frost and rain – the first four images show the drawing in progress

Rock studies

I have a collection of rocks found on walks. I like the look of them and their weight and texture in my hand. Over the years I have made many visual studies of the same rocks – each time noticing something I had previously not seen. John Ruskin once said you could learn much about mountains from one small boulder and, it seems to me, he was right. Sometimes I juxtapose the hard heaviness of a rock against the fragile transparency of an old bottle or jar ….

More trees

I return, over and over again, to trees – as individual characters, as markers in the landscape, as beings full of history – often full of movement, bending and swaying in wind and rain – inseparable from the air that surrounds and moves through them. The ‘lone pine’ is a well-known local landmark near Thorverton

Other drawings

I spent a long time on the dandelion drawing – such an interesting, complex form. ‘Weathering & withering’ grew from memories of walking in the Yorkshire Dales. ‘Mountains, valleys…’ has echoes of classical Chinese ink paintings – forms appearing and disappearing in the pictorial space – I had been reading Gary Snyder’s beautiful series of poems: Mountains & rivers without end

Notebook studies

My notebooks are full of studies of plants, rocks and other natural forms, and preparatory drawings for larger works – sometimes they are just ideas for drawings and occasionally they take on a more complete ‘finished’ form