Box Hill #4 - Bottoms & Forts | Tim Baker | Watercolour Paintings, Drawings & Acrylic Artworks

The Old Fort, Box Hill - final, Watercolour and Gouache, A3

Box Hill #4 – Bottoms & Forts

Back to Box Hill and the Old Fort…I fort you did that before?
No, but I mentioned this on a previous visit, where I started this watercolour, and finished it on the fourth visit with gouache. Part of the ‘Urban’ series celebrating ruined places and graffiti, it was odd to see this here in such a lovely setting. Rather paradoxical in fact – but this was one of the ‘last defence’ forts setup to resist a possible invasion during Napoleon times.

The Old Fort, Box Hill (in progress), Watercolour, A3
The Old Fort, Box Hill – final, Watercolour and Gouache, A3

More trees, Box HIll, Dorking, Surrey. Black and white. — The Old Fort, Box Hill (in progress), Watercolour, A3

I also took some interesting photos, and it must be leaky somewhere like the Richmond toilet, I could see kids on the roof and hear them inside. This is also a first in extreme watercolour work – I was intrepidly sitting 8-10 foot off the ground on one of those pillars you can see in the photo above. I kept dropping things, so good it was just grass down there!

This was later on, I actually started the day walking from Juniper Hall, and rather than going up to the Broadwood Folly, walked along to the next valley funnily named Juniper Bottom.

Sitting on a high stone post at the Old Fort on Box Hill, Dorking — Extreme Watercolour!

Juniper Bottom, Watercolour and Conte Crayon, A3

My workspace - soup, tuffbox, water, brush, crayons, Lidl bag, all set! A bench overlooking Juniper Bottom, Box Hill, Dorking. — My workspace – soup, tuffbox, water, brush, crayons, Lidl bag, all set!

Not really being a big fan of valleys (not many views in valleys) I walked up toward Juniper Top and found a bench in a perfect spot to do a watercolour. It was very hot and it dried quickly (more of that please!) hence I didn’t have to do any two-stage bobbins and could work almost immediately on adding Conte Crayon. Does mean there aren’t any in-progress shots though…

I walked on along Juniper Top which was hot work until I got into the cool of the woods – I was heading for the tumulus marked on the map. There is a maze of paths in this part of Box Hill and signage just stops. I eventually hit a road and the very strangely named American food restaurant (yes lets name our restaurant after a gun manufacturer, can’t see how that might go badly with all these shootings?) and realised I’d missed the tumulus. I doubled back, wandered through some of forest off-track, wandered around – couldn’t find it. So I gave up and headed to the fort.

I did take some nice pictures of trees though – and a placeholder for the tumulus, behold the Green Man series! If you like these, they are an extension of the photographs from a previous visit.