Ten National Parks

The UK has fifteen national parks:  two in Scotland, three in Wales and ten in England. Today I'm bringing you two thirds of the set.

My friends, clients and, later today, married couple, Jon and Hannah, asked me to come up with illustrations for their wedding reception table plan. They've had happy holidays working through the list of national parks, coming from the New Forest themselves.  Here is their selection for ten tables.

Ten of the United Kingdom's national parks.

It's an ideal project for me - making lists, sketching and then filling a circle. There's wildlife, human structures, wide views and close-ups, lots of weather and a few references to the experience of visiting the elemental edifices of the British Sublime, from lunchboxes to lost gloves.

Dartmoor, The Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, the Brecon Beacons and the Cairngorms are left out for now but here we have Exmoor, Snowdonia, the Pembrokeshire Coast, the Lake District, the Peak District, the South Downs, the Norfolk Broads, the New Forest, Northumberland and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.

I've been to most of them myself, although some may have been in early childhood. I've drifted on the Broads, scrambled up Snowdon, gasped on a South Down and got wet by Loch Lomond. Of course, there are plenty of other areas of land to gasp or get wet but the designated national parks are a great focus. Completing the set sounds like a great holiday plan.

Hampshire Trios

I spend a lot of time thinking Hampshire thoughts, compiling snippets of geography and history.  There's a lot of Hampshire that I've never seen.  I'm working on vignettes of a spread of towns and villages.  Here's an example of how things are going.

First, three from the south east:  Bishop's Waltham, with the ruins of the bishop's palace; Wickham, with the Chesapeake Mill supposedly built with timber from the defeated American ship the Chesapeake; and Hambledon, up in the downs, with its cricketing history.

 The second set is the three hursts of the New Forest.  There are more settlements of note but these three fit together well.  Lyndhurst is the forest's capital.  Ashurst, the eastern gateway to the forest, is quite small, being combined with Colbury for administrative purposes.  Brockenhurst has the grandest hotels.

It's a big county.  Wish me luck with the rest of it!

Open Spaces

Last month I showed some workings for a piece about the New Forest.  It was for this year's open exhibition at Mottisfont (the National Trust house near Romsey), on the theme "open spaces".  I produced a three-colour screenprint together and it was accepted by the selection panel.

"New Forest Heathland"

The forest was my natural response to "open spaces".  The area of heathland south-east of Lyndhurst, down Beaulieu Road and across Yew Tree Heath is my favourite destination for an escape from town.  I wanted to depict not only the tiny details of gorse, fern and heather, but also the signs that the forest is a human landscape:  trig points, telegraph poles, pylons, sign posts, the obvious management of coppices, cattle and ponies and the constant flame of the oil refinery in the distance.

If I were starting the piece now I would be tempted to make reference to John Betjeman's passage about Lyndhurst in "First and Last Loves", in 1952.

People say you cannot properly see the New Forest from the main roads and they are quite right.  But on a warm evening you can smell it between the wafts of petrol scent which linger on the tarmac - the resin scent among the conifers, the coconut smell of gorse on an open heath, the tropic scent like the Palm House at Kew under oaks and beeches, where holly shines and bracken is a young green. 

Outside Lyndhurst the forest begins to look less wild.  Victorian brick cottages peep about among the trees.  Lodge gates stand guard to winding drives of laurel and azalea, at the end of which - how deep, how far, who knows? - are the country houses of the formerly rich.

Hanging my print!

Now one of my seven prints is nicely framed and up on the wall.  Even better...  I hung it myself.

The exhibition is in the upstairs gallery at Mottisfont

28th September to 17th November

11 - 5 daily

New Forest - Work In Progress

My favourite bit of non-town to head to is the part of the New Forest between Lyndhurst and Beaulieu.  The fastest I've ever managed the cycle ride to Lyndhurst was 39 minutes - although that may have been the time when I set out around 4am on a Saturday and went over the Millbrook and Redbridge flyovers.  Sometimes I come back on the Hythe ferry.

Drawing near Lyndhurst.

I love simply riding steadily on the roads.  Beaulieu Road undulates consistently (though generally downhill) as it runs south from Lyndhurst.  I love the open skies of the heathland, the fine sand between rows of heather and the medieval feel of the low pine groves.  It's Medieval and yet somehow Californian.

For me, it's a surprise to be in such a quiet place, even with groups of cyclists and classic car drivers, and pylons and the Fawley oil refinery usually visible.  I love the occasional trig points and burial mounds, opposite ends of the timeline of human activity.

Demo for a piece based on the New Forest.

I'm trying to put a piece together about it all.  My work is usually about busy details, not vast space, so it's a challenge to evoke the enigmatic silence, the wide sky and the warm colours of gorse and heather.