In the last two years I’ve been working with images from the Blyth valley which is a short distance from where I live.

It is a tiny river at the point I’ve been walking, partly blocked in places but swathed on both sides by trees and meadows. There is an area which I think is/was a plantation of trees, many of which have fallen and created a mass of branches which are often reflected in the water. Complicated reflections and shadows. I hope to get back to those reflections in a different series of paintings.

When I began working from the valley it was winter, bare and bleak. It was beautiful to watch the trees blossom into waves of white all over the valley when spring came. Finished all too soon.

I started with small paintings almost as studies. A fallen tree, a path by the river marked with blossom and seedheads in dead grass, waiting for spring. In one, I tried to get a feeling of wind rushing through the grass and carrying the seeds away. The small blossom path painting became a big painting finally. I tried to keep it loose but also descriptive of what it felt like.