When I got back from Coventry I decided to risk going back to Box Hill. I’d spent the spring and summer wanting to go there but too scared because of the lockdown especially the long bus ride, but I knew if I didn’t go there at all this year I’d be annoyed with myself and feel like the summer was wasted. I’ve been a few times since, but the first works I did were ink/parallel pen pieces, like ‘Reverse Zig Zag’ – a reverse view of a piece I did last year, although with everything that has happened it feels longer ago.
I’m still trying to get those shadows right, at least this time I didn’t pile in loads of Nickel Yellow!
I also did a 10-15 minute drawing of one of my favourite trees on Barrie’s Bank while I waited for the bus. I also photographed this tree back on my second ever trip.
Reverse Zig Zag (Panel 1), Box Hill, Parallel Pen with Sketchink and brush. 
Reverse Zig Zag (Panel 2), Box Hill, Parallel Pen with Sketchink and brush.
I ran out of time when doing the drawings, hence feeling rushed and I’d also come across what I call The Green Wood which is near where I drew the zig zag on that trip and mentally added it as a place to properly revisit and draw.
The wood is very secluded since there have been a few tree falls blocking the path and not many people go there, and even birds don’t sing in this part of the wood. It’s quit a spooky place, with wiry dead? trees and green moss and even the white chalk has turned green. I’ve been there close to dark when a bird – or something flew into me, like a pile of black feathers which was surprising as I was sitting so close to the ground on my old stool (RIP, but we’ll get to that in a future post).
Like the nearby Druid’s Wood it feels like a mystical and lost in time place, but far less spooky than that place!
I call this one ‘The Green Door’ because it’s like an arched door and feels like an entrance to this part of the wood. I also have had an idea for a folk horror meets sci-fi story around a green door to another dimension or place, and this fits the bill totally. I suspect these are Box trees, one odd thing is how the shoots grow vertically off the branches.
Black Wood, Box Hill, Kuretake with Rotring Ink and brush, A3. 
White Wood, Box Hill, Jackson’s Ink, Candle and brush, A3.
I also tried to depict the white branches deeper in this wood, with ink and brush and wax resist/candle and ink pieces…the first piece ‘Black Wood’ was accidental as I managed to unscrew the wrong part of my Kuretake Brush Pen and dump ink all over the page and my hands for the second time that day. The first time on the bus while finishing a drawing! So I went with it and the white trees became black, and vice versa. The second attempt ‘White Wood’ was using the candle and wax resist, with the blind ‘mystery drawing’ technique.
I think the best piece was the one I was working on when the black bird flew into me, and whereas the other ones might be tenously linked this is definitely part of the Dead Tree series. Again, I had to rush this as it went dark, a common theme: as the nights drew in, I was frantically drawing in the night! I promised to come back and draw more, which I kept with the pieces above but still feel I am not finished with this place.
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