Bluebells, Bushy Park

A clearing in late-spring woodland, bluebells washing the ground in a haze of lavender and blue. A young beech holding all the new green light on the left, a dark conifer beside it standing as the anchor. Sky bright through the canopy. The kind of week the wood gives you once a year.

An original watercolour of Bushy Park’s bluebell season, painted on Arches HP 100% cotton. The park’s Woodland Gardens — the Pheasantry and Waterhouse Plantation — wake up like this for two weeks every spring, bluebells coming through under hawthorn and oak before the canopy closes for summer. The rest of the park is open deer pasture; in this corner it’s planted to feel like a private wood instead.