Original oils, watercolours and drawings from £55 each on panels of Dorst oak or watermarked handmade paper

Dorset Oak Panels

When a hurriace struck the South of England on the night of 15 - 16th October 1987 an estimated 15,000,000 trees were destroyed in a single night (Kew Garden Statistics).

In order to save something from the chainsaw I began acquiring various timbers with a view to making panels for oil paintings as used from mediaeval times by such painters as Leonardo da Vinci, Van Eyck, Rembrandt, and Rubens. The stability of carefully seasoned fine woods has contributed to their paintings lasting for hundreds of years.

I had earlier seasoned some elm when those great trees were decimated by disease. Now, the National Trust and the Conservators of Epping Forest helped me collect examples of box, cherry, lime, beech, and yew. However, the king of panel timbers is the slow-grown fine English oak. Magnificent trees of great age from Kingston Lacy, Kingcombe, Fiddleford and Shillingstone were planked and seasoned.

This initial handful of miniature panels comes from New Cross near Shillingstone. In the lane to Hammoon, a large limb of oak was salvaged on 22nd October 1987 and it is this that has been seasoned for twenty years to make the panels seen here.

Somerset Handmade Paper

A watercolour painting on handmade paper has a singularity that derives from the input of skills of three artisans - mould-maker, paper-maker and painter.

One of the last craftsmen of the first species lives in Kent. Ronald Macdonald makes the paper-makers instrument - the mould and deckle - on which various papers can be played like tunes. His work in wood, wax and brass produces pieces reminiscent of antique furniture.

Water from the Brendon Hills near Exmoor in Somerset powers a small watermill tucked into the folds of the landscape. Here Neil Hopkins makes paper from the finest cotton rag. Employing techniques unchanged in centuries, each sheet is individually formed by dipping the mould and settling the film of fibres. Tub-sized, pressed and dried the sheets go to the loft at the top of Pitt Mill to dry.

The painter gradually learns to exploit qualities peculiar to the paper. The resultant picture is, in effect, a collaboration and unique in more than the usual sense. To confirm this my paper is watermarked with my Light and Water motif and initials.