I’ve always been fascinated with the wooden shelters, tipis and such DIY woodcraft spaces in forests. I have a suspicion that some aren’t made by kids, and are ritual spaces especially when you find odd tree markings nearby like with #1 drawing here. And also the theme of shelter seems pertinent, even lockdown in the United States is called ‘Shelter in place’. I know I’d rather be in a shelter in the woods, hiding from all this if I could.
These drawings are partly carrying on from my oil painting ‘The Orange Shelter’ which made me wonder if someone was living there. The first one, below and featured above was meant to be a watercolour but I ended up in pretty much darkness finishing it in Stokes Field nature reserve near Long Ditton. I wasn’t scared, since it takes more than ghosts, witches, gods and goblins to scare me at the moment with this virus rampant! (Although getting lost on the way back in a field surrounded by barbed wire and having to go over a locked gate to escape was worrying).
As well as the tree marking with a strange symbol nearby, I noted the central tree was actually three trees growing out of one. Pretty sure that’s a magical thing too?
And the more recent ink drawing/painting is from Richmond Park which I have been exploring a lot recently. This is in a dip on the way to Isabella Plantation, someone has created a shelter in the hollow created by a fallen tree. There’s something bucolic about this until you look at the close details and it started to get more spooky.
There is a pond in front of it where a lone child’s shoe floated – very Dark and Lonely Water – and then a blackbird in the opposite side that came and posed for ages. But I like the Swallows and Amazons nature, a place you could hide away…but also it has a Grave of the Fireflies feel to it as well.
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