A FOREST IN MY STUDIO

A FOREST IN MY STUDIO.

I have always been fascinated by trees in winter, the way they seem to dance, create strange shapes and figures.

So perhaps it is not unexpected that I awoke one morning at the beginning of January with the need and desire to surround myself with trees.

Our life had been severely curtailed not only by Covid and the various lockdowns but also by Bruce’s stroke.

The trees are never portraits of a particular tree and I am never quite sure what form and shape they will take. They are always done with charcoal, graphite stick or oil pastel making it a very physical process.

I put music on, rarely with voice, and a slideshow of trees taken over the years.

While I work on the drawings, I bring together walks that I have done, each tree and branch that I draw is accompanied in my mind by trees, hedges and lanes, with smells and sounds

of walks that I have done, linking together the past and the present in my forest.

Each picture captures a different stage and emotion that I am going through.

This need to escape into the countryside that the trees represent has become even more necessary after I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy (I am still recovering and waiting results).

I now have the trees all round my studio, they are small, largish, with colour and just black and white but I can walk into that space and shut the door and I am surrounded by my forest.

I am hoping that, when it is possible, I will be able to share this experience.