I walk every day and there are some places I feel drawn to more than others. When I stand looking in a familiar place, it’s not just about observing it, it’s about feeling it and knowing it. Reading the locational energy of a place, a place that has become so familiar, so loved through all its seasonal changes, that you notice its every nuance, growth and emotional energy.
I have two places that I go back to regularly to walk and draw…
I liken finding the soul of a landscape to people, we are drawn and connect to different people, some more than others. Some people we fall in love with straight-away and others are a slow burn. This kind of knowing of the people we love helps us actually see them and it is the same with the landscapes I paint.
Every place comes with its own mood, sometimes that mood changes with the people we are walking with, the weather, the seasons. Returning to the same meadow, woodland, river until it’s light becomes familiar, feeling the different silences in a place, light or heavy.
There is something rather wonderful about a walk that stretches your eyes. This walk in May in Eversden towards the Bluebell woods does just that. You walk up a slow incline towards the brow of a hill, there is a feeling of the passage of time here, a residual energy from the people that have walked here before. This slow pace upwards allows time to absorb nature on a deeper level, becoming more mindful and observant. Then as you reach the top you are rewarded by an expanse of yellow Canola fields, so vast, so bright, it makes you gasp. The smell also hits you, a heady, woody smell of the bright yellow flowers.
There are a few solitary trees here and there which break it up, tracks from the tractor undulating through which provide contours. A view of Cambridge on a clear day.
If you are lucky the skies are a dark, stormy grey, racing, changing, creating moving shadows on the fields. This colour contrast is what hit me, the grey made the yellow so much brighter and the bright Unison Colour yellow made the grey clouds darker and deeper. They bounced off each other. I found the grey Unison Colour set best for these East Anglian skies.
I quite often carry a sketch bag for moments like these, scribbling notes and taking photos. I have drawn a series of these Canola fields now. Unison Colour pastels are perfect for this. They resonate with me because of their intense pigments, all natural. What better way to capture the earth and landscapes than pigments that have come directly from it. I love that circle.
Unison Colour pastels don’t crumble, even being knocked about in a sketching rucksack, they stay whole. They layer well, which means huge skies like these, can be blended until the right depth happens.
Painting for me is an act of listening, Unison Colour pastels allow me to interact directly with the surface of my paper, just hand to colour to paper, no mixing needed.
So, back to knowing and feeling a place, how does that change how we paint it?
I have different ways of knowing a place, the first is to walk there, through all the seasons, observing it, noticing its changes, listening to it. There is a locational energy in every place, how does it feel, who walked here before?
Then I start to look, in the muddy ploughed fields and by the rivers there will be lost or discarded objects, pieces of pottery, old coins, buckles, a sense of who has been here before. Flowers, bark, feathers too. I hold these, I carry them with me, sometimes I bring them back to my studio and make something. I like the idea of forgotten objects becoming treasures.
Then I research and read about a place, find old photographs of people who lived here. This deeper understanding of a place changes how I draw. I don’t need to be there to paint it, I can draw from the feeling and knowledge. I draw with a knowing and love that comes from time and a knowing that can’t be hurried.
I want the viewers to feel the soft pull of approaching rain that I might have felt, the sun warming me, the understanding and love for a place, the history, experiencing the landscapes as I have felt them.
Byron’s pool drawn here has a very special pull for me. I have been drawing here for over 15 years. Lord Byron bathed here with his pet grizzly bear while he studied at Cambridge.
Augustus John, Gwen John, Virginia Woolf were some of the regular visitors. This has always felt like a creative place for me, so I know the creative energy of those wonderful minds, still reside here. Did they gaze at this view? Did they touch that tree? Did they write here, draw here, picnic here. I know from reading that they did and that’s magical.
One evening I was driving home, it was sunset, I had that pull to turn off my route and hopefully catch the sunset before it disappeared at Byrons pool. I parked and ran, there it was. The water was mirror still, the tree’s silent, brooding.
Winter came, this year I woke to a hoar frost and knew the one place I wanted to be, but I had to be fast as it was a light scattering. We all gasped with wonder when we saw this view. I wanted to capture that wonder. I was thinking about whites, how many different whites are there. Unison Colour pastels are so subtle I knew there would be a vast array of whites. Unison Colour set Light 1-18 was perfect. I have been building up my Unison Colour pastels for over 30 years, sometimes just going to the art shop to buy one particular shade. Occasionally I treat myself to a large set, I have around 300 pastels in my box now.
The layers here are what drew me in, the leaves upon the surface, the reflection, the leaves on the bottom of the river-bed, seemed to symbolise everything I felt about knowing. The many layers of understanding of a place, people.
You cannot rush a relationship with a landscape. It asks for time, humility, and presence. But if you give it those things, it gives something back: a knowing that deepens your work, and a stillness that lingers long after you’ve left.
Every field, every river, every quiet stretch of woodland holds more stories than we will ever know. When we return to them with our hands full of colour, we become part of that story too. Perhaps that is why I keep going back – to listen for the ones that haven’t finished speaking yet.
