Over the last few years I’ve been learning to draw and paint landscapes better, and across 2025 I aim to accelerate that practice by attempting to create 1,000 Landscapes. Inspired by Calderdale with its twisting and turning ancient landforms, where every view is unexpected and every day different, it is the land of a thousand landscapes. None of the pictures I’ll share on this page are finished, they are all practice or mark making and I want to share that process with anyone interested.
Read more about this project
A big part of my landscape practice involves considering human design in landscape and how those human elements can help our minds make sense of the visual richness of nature. Over the years it helped me appreciate the psychology of the way we simplify our world when we create, and how our minds are programmed to be then be drawn to simpler shapes and patterns.
Both by designing landscapes in gardens and through researching my three books, Wild about Weeds, RHS Gardeners’ Book of Patterns, A Greener Life and articles, I’ve spent years reflecting on what humanity is and isn’t drawn to. I believe we have gone too far, to the detriment of nature, leading to a desire to eradicate nature around the world, either deliberately or without realising.
1,000 Landscapes is part of my attempt to understand and has a few core aims. At a basic level, I’ve set myself the personal challenge of painting and drawing landscapes around Calderdale to further my painting and drawing skills in an intense burst of practice. I believe translating what I see to the page also helps me understand why I am drawn to landscape. And, while I don’t aim to produce finished pictures, though there may be a handful by the end, I want to take people with me by sharing what I make, good or bad. To help everyone look again at the world in a new way. They may not be finished pictures, it could simply be an abstract mark or splodge to reflect my mood or emotion at the time, but collectively they might help convey better what I mean. Or at least, provide a few minutes of something interesting for you to look at.
When we first moved to Calderdale, I was immediately drawn to the views around the valley of the landmarks Heptonstall and Stoodley Pike. Almost always present, but because of the waving nature of the shapes of the valleys, the land around them always felt different, it was hard to make sense of how everything related physically. Soon I began to wonder, why am I drawn to that part of the view? Is it just because of the human made structures of the hilltop church and monument, or would I have focussed on those two hills regardless? Why was I constantly drawn to that view, and not say, the hill to the left lined with trees and equally beautiful views beyond?
At some point I began drawing that view without the structures, imagining them before they were built. This led me to draw and paint landscape without human structure, as much as I enjoy painting and drawing the sweep of a road or perspective from a path. Could a landscape of just nature be as visually exciting? Why wouldn’t it be? I find drawing human made elements far easier than natural elements, they’re simple, and yet, it is nature that I want to portray my love of. This is my attempt to see if I can do it.
