Box Hill #5 - 172 Mole Swings | Tim Baker | Watercolour Paintings, Drawings & Acrylic Artworks

172 (Rorschach Series), Box Hill, Watercolour, A3

Box Hill #5 – 172 Mole Swings

So on my fifth visit I started at Burford Bridge and walked down to the Stepping Stones. I had been here before, to check it out, and knew that the Stepping Stones weren’t in operation (and rather disappointingly are concrete pillars all the same shape, rather than my mental image of nice stones…). So I walked along Burford Meadow and over the bridge.

On the other side, before you got to the stones I found some rope swings over the River Mole. Well, I hope one is a rope swing…? Rather noose-like, tbh. I liked the reflections on the river which you can see from the pictures almost have a halo around the ‘noose’, and the contrast of finding something so possibly dark yet maybe innocent in a lovely place like that. Appealed to my sense of dark humour, so I sat down to paint.

Rope swing, River Mole, Dorking — That’s a swing?

After interruptions from kids using the swings (they liked my work, so result!) I was done, not sure how I feel about it now. You can see from the in-progress watercolour that certain things are missing, but feel I added slightly too much. Also had problems even adding the swings as the paint wasn’t dry and time was pressing.

The Noose, River Mole, in progress, Watercolour, A3
The Noose, River Mole, final, Watercolour and Conte Crayon, A3

So I had some soup and then moved on. I took photos all day, here is a selection, with a continuation of my ‘tree photos’ aka the Green Man series.

Under Burford Bridge, Dorking — Under Burford Bridge

Burford Meadows, Dorking — Under Burford Bridge

After a really hot and sweaty walk up the many steps (the North Downs Way, this seems far more vertical than the Zig Zag Road or Barrie’s Bank, or via Juniper Hall) I saw a great view of Denbies and towards the hill of Ranmore Common and Ashtead Woods as the sun raked across it.

So I tried to do a really loose abstract watercolour with my biggest brush. It kind of got messy…I even tried scratching into the watercolour with the end of the brush. Again, it was getting cold and had to leave, I was running late, and it wasn’t drying quickly.

As a result I have moved away from this kind of watercolour for the moment. It’s just too chaotic and needs either a much hotter day and/or more time, or coming back later rather than trying to work repeatedly wet on wet and it all just starts to bleed. But I knew I’d probably not get those lighting conditions again…

The name is because exactly where I was on the OS map there is a giant ‘172’ – I’m guessing that’s the height of the nearby Salomon memorial, but I’m not really sure. Abstract name for an abstract piece it seems to fit.