Four Square Miles

I work for the NHS analysing health and social care data to help improve the quality of services and forecast demand. As for all, in March 2020 the world changed with the advent of COVID-19. Suddenly the home studio became the home office; working hours seemed to elongate; and residual energy reserves to pick up a brush, or a pencil, or a sketchbook, dissipated.

By January 2022 the world (and work) had returned to some form of normality. And, after a few late nights talking art with friends and sampling some locally crafted beer and spirits, I decided I needed to get back to the discipline of painting.

The home studio was still the home office: a second desk would be needed. In the meantime, I could pick up my travelling box of paints, walk the lanes and fields around our village, and respond to the views, the weather, the moment in time. The Four Square Miles project was started.

A routine was established. Weather permitting, a 10 minute pencil or watercolour sketch at least every second or third day and a small 'en plein air' oil painting every one to two weeks. By the end of the year I had 8 full sketchbooks and 48 small oil artworks: some bad, some OK, and some that might have something.

The focus now is to take what I've learnt into the studio, build on the outdoor work and see if I can produce larger scale artworks that retain the sense of place I think I managed to capture while out and about.