TIM BAKER

Birds always seem to come to me or pose for my pieces – The Green Wood notwithstanding – maybe there is an artist who looks like me who feeds them? Anyway I don’t invent animals or people who appear in my work, usually they walk into it and get added if they stay long enough. An example was painting this fallen tree at Box Hill from which new branches and life has sprung – very Dead Tree series and rebirth deep in the wood – when appropriately a Robin came and sang for me.

As a result I think the Robin who kept moving around appears a few times! I remember getting bitten by insects too, which is partly why I carry insect repellent now.

On what according to the map is Burford Spur I painted a view of what I think is called ‘The Whites” – the red building looks like Denbie’s but could be Burford Lodge or the Bridge Hotel. I used the wax resist technique here with watercolour – I was surprised to find that it worked with that.

I know Burford Spur more as Barrie’s Bank after the Peter Pan author’s stalky crush episode with fabulously bearded George Meredith who obviously had a lark ascending to the top of Box Hill on his donkey Panic *ho ho*. Although this is a bit up from there, more towards the viewpoint at Salomon’s Memorial along the chalk white path. Hence the name ‘The Whites’ I guess?

Also on Barrie’s Bank is this tree…pretty sure it’s a box tree but could be wrong….I drew it quickly on a previous trip but felt it deserved more time, hence this etchr pad study. I wonder if JM hid behind it?

On another trip I walked around Norbury Park, which is the hill opposite and was also owned by Leopold Salomons who donated Box Hill to the nation in 1915. Fittingly I painted a view of Box Hill on Fabriano Artistico paper…not too far from Druid’s Wood I found out when it got dark! I got out of there sharpish. Rather proud of the sky in this one, the puffy clouds.

Shown on that painting as the long vertical dark blue strip on the right is the cutting where the Broadwood Tower is situated. I’ve painted it and photographed it before – the folly that was built by Thomas Broadwood of piano fame when they were living in Juniper Hall below. What I like about this is the rather stark tree which is actually visible for miles around, even from the Zig Zag Road. I drew this late on, and watched a cauldron of bats – apparently that is one of the collective nouns for them – play, swoop and have aerial munchies. I wonder if they live in the tower?

I did have a spooky dark walk back to the visitor’s centre after that…it gets very dark in those woods!

And finally a view of The Viewpoint, aka Salomons Memorial. I drew and painted this view on my first trip to Box Hill back in May 2019 – feels an age ago – but always felt I could do it better. This was painted sitting on one side of the benches that are part of the memorial, and the title reflects the common name for it, and also the people conversing in the field below.

Again, wax resist and you can see the new Rembrandt Cobalt Violet in the sky, which makes a great difference. Still had some wet on wet bleeding problems but the wax resist helps and I feel it works a lot better than previous attempts at this view.