Blog

Beginnings - November'25

It is now almost a year since I made my major move north to the East Riding of Yorkshire, leaving behind a London allotment where I happily tended my plot for over twenty years.

It was a wish of mine to walk out of a door into a garden and I have not only fulfilled this wish, but these are French doors that open onto a patio where I have installed a small pond. Just inside is an easel table, beneath a skylight, and it is here that I can do my flower and bird paintings.

I love to watch the birds and see them hop along a central path, as if it had been there forever.

In fact, I had to begin the garden completely from scratch. It was mainly covered in a large, wooden shack and artificial grass, with little to no life in it. After plantings and sowings over the spring and summer, the garden greatly surpassed my expectations in terms of growth. I think this was perhaps due to adding eighteen bags of horse manure at the start.

I have just completed a commission for a little wren painting and coincidentally one has been appearing quite regularly in the garden. In my nature diary from when I was at school, I have written that wrens move about in a mouse-like manner, which I think is a good description of how speedily they can appear and then disappear amongst the foliage.

Next up, I have a commission for a puffin painting and a couple of half-finished flower paintings to complete that now feel redolent of warmer, sunnier months.