Driving to my studio as per usual yesterday, after adding another layer of oils to a picture, it dawned on me how my trees were from memory and I wasn’t pleased with the quality of them, so I thought “Right! I’m gonna drive to the Peak District and draw some bloody trees!”. So I set off up the motorway from Two Queens, along the way I had this anxiety, I realised I hadn’t driven this far from home since the Lockdown began, I stopped, ate a unsatisfying chicken fajita wrap from a service station and carried on trucking. At last! Rolling hills, bright green and grey rocky hill sides exploding with colour in the summertime sun, Anxiety completely disappeared. Further up the A6, past Haarlem Artspace in Wirksworth (near where I used to go to school and subsequently fell in love with the colours of these ‘green and pleasant lands’), through Bakewell and Buxton (where that water comes from) and some random turns letting the landscape dictate the way to go, I finally arrived at a place that struck my interest, parked up in a lay-by and started walking up a trail, a beautiful grey rock face looked at me, I showed it my charcoal and some oil pastels and got to work. As I was sketching away I noticed the warmth of the sun on my back and the sound of the wind blowing past me, I got stung by nettles but it didn’t matter because nothing could make me uncomfortable in this setting, on the top of a hill with my bag of colours. Right, finished! Off to another location, back up road t’Buxton, wrong way, ooo what’s up there? A valley? Past a car park, a body of water, I quickly reversed the car, parked up and sat next to this seemingly still and quiet water. I thought wow, Hockney was right, I need to explore these ripples, this wet stuff is hard to represent, got to work, ten minutes went by and I thought, the ripples are going in the wrong directions, what’s that light doing there? Got my eraser out and played about with it until I was happy. Although I was by myself, I didn’t feel alone in the valley, it was as though the wind travelling through the long grass and the light playing on those ripples was keeping me company, I was content in that moment.