Path by the Brook, Richmond Park

A path through the grass, the brook turning past it, the trees still mostly bare. A few willows already yellow-green at the edges. Straw-coloured ground, a clear blue overhead — winter ending, the year starting to lean.

An original watercolour of early spring in Richmond Park, painted on Arches HP 100% cotton. The park sits between Kingston and Roehampton — heath and acid grassland on the high ground above the Thames, kept open by centuries of grazing. At this time of year it reads almost prairie: ochres and russet shot through with the first lifts of green, a brook threading the lower ground, a path following it past trees coming back into leaf.