The Lone Tree, Buttermere

The lone tree at Buttermere — one of those quiet Lakeland landmarks that people make pilgrimages to. End of the day, wind dropped, the lake gone to glass. A bare silhouette against the last of the light; the fells and the colour fell in behind it.

An original watercolour of one of the Lake District’s best-loved scenes, painted on 100% cotton paper. Buttermere sits between Haystacks and the High Stile ridge in the western Cumbrian fells — a working hill-farm valley, a place walkers come to for the long quiet light. The single hawthorn on the shoreline has been photographed thousands of times; this is the same view in watercolour, with the peach and lavender of a Lakeland sunset pulled out of the water itself.