Summer at the concrete blocks:

As the seasons changed, the hill had added a riot of acid ragwort to the khaki-coloured grasses, which seemed to particularly like the edges of the concrete slabs. The grey of the footings looked astonishing next to the bright yellow and it felt as though the whole scene had changed almost overnight. 

There's a more complex piece of concrete that unlike the aerial footings is completely unfathomable and looks completely different from each angle. It sat squatly in the ragwort, and I sat and drew that with the hill to my back. Later, in the studio, my crayon sketches became a large drawing, and that became a large painting.






Summer Ragwort At The Concrete Footings, Morgan’s Hill
Acrylic and mixed media on cradled panel, 90cm x 120cm, 2026



First painting of Morgan’s Hill:

One interesting thing about the remains of the concrete footings on Morgan's Hill is how clear the structure is to read. The aerials sat on a large, flat concrete pad with a ring of bolts to secure it, which are now sheared off in the direction the aerials were felled when the station was dismantled. The aerials were held up by sets of three cables attached to angled concrete footings, the leftovers of which are pleasingly brutalist-looking.

I enjoyed how this giant slab was wedged into the side of the hill and compositionally how the textures of the hill and the textures of the concrete sat alongside each other. Collage mixed with drawing felt helpful to refine the composition, along with the paint sketches in the previous blog post.  





Discovery Of The Concrete Blocks, Morgan’s Hill
Acrylic on cradled panel, 2026, 50cm x 100cm




Beginning to understand the concrete blocks :






A set of four small compositional collages after a second visit to the wireless station.






The remains of Devizes Wireless Station:

I attended a lecture at Wiltshire Museum  about the remnants of a pre-WWI wireless receiving station on nearby Morgan's Hill. As a seasoned aerial-botherer, the top of the hill has been a favourite of mine for some time but the older wireless station was new to me. I took an exploratory trip over there in spring to investigate the remains, which turned out to be some lovely concrete blocks covered with moss and lichen like ancient stones. 

Apart from a certain amount of peril from curious cows (which mostly seemed to want to scratch their flanks on the historically important blocks), conditions were perfect for a few exploratory sketches, which then became some quick paint studies back in the studio. 










Winter Avebury collages:

After a few visits to Avebury as the sun was setting in late winter, I wanted to record the ghostly feel of dusk amongst the stones. It had been quite a bleak, grey day but as I climbed up over the hill from Silbury there was a trail of of white headlights and red tail lights floating along the main road and when the moon rose it was a wonderful peachy-orange before fading to white. The stones turned from grey to velvery-black.

Back in Devizes, the John Piper exhibition had begun at Wiltshire Museum, curated by local author and art critic Andrew Lambirth. I was particularly taken with Piper's collages, both in their deceptive simplicity (one had a very fetching sky made from a square of coloured paper with the sky torn out of it) and his resilience at creating them. It was described that he would go out armed with papers and a pot of glue. In the brave new world we now live in that has the invention of Pritt Stick, it seemed rude not to do the same. 

This set of collages was a response to all of that.


















A week in Pembrokeshire:

A set of studies on paper completed after a week on the Pembrokeshire coast in summer 2025, in which I think we experienced every weather condition that exists. In particular the waves were enormous and the Blue Lagoon was looking more like a Foamy Brown Lagoon. 



These studies on paper became three small studies in paint on board: 








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