6th June 2026
To be honest with myself i often get frustrated when things happen which impede my flow but over the last year i have been making grounds on being able to adapt rather than be in resistance. I was in the Forest early with my usual weekly painting session , i like getting early as there are no people around however now that its warm the midges have emerged huge clouds which makes painting untenable. I do not want to stop going out painting , i have been doing it every week for the last 6 months and i like the connection and what comes from me. Nature is telling me that i should expand and find other things in summer. I have a few ideas which needs finding locations plus i need to practice a few techniques which i have in mind and most of all i need to go and put something down on paper to develop. This week will be last for Forest Forms in Kielder until November when i will be back in the Forest painting.
What i have realised within myself is that i need to create in my own way regardless of how people receive it. I am seeking through my gestures and the letting the paint find the spirit of something whilst creating something new from experience. Hilma Af Klint expressed it as the process reveals the hidden forces of nature. I do not want to copy whats in front of me but let the process find something new which hold the essence of combined spirits.
This week has been a wash out with rain and i did not think i would make it to Bull Crag Peninsular , it isn’t about having the right clothes but my camera equipment is not weather proof. This is being in the flow of life , listening to signs and letting be. Fortunately on Friday , albeit a little windy i managed to make it to Bull Crag.
Being able to adapt brings new things , it broadens your outlook and develops new ways of seeing things which eventually deepens your previous work helping evolve and be able to tell the stories in different ways.
I have now added a new daily blog “Meet a Tree” to promote the beauty and awe of trees. The idea began from thinking about the recently illegal felling of the sycamore on Hadrians Wall : It was an act of vandalism . As the tree was featured a lot in art and films it had become famous. My philosophy is that everything is beautiful and derserves our love, gratitude and reverence to life. My love letter to trees (s) or part of trees which i find in Kielder and Northumberland and to show wherever you are is a beautiful tree which you can befriend , make art from , hug and love just as much as a famous tree.
Bakethin Nature Reserve
There is an energy bursting at its seems , some have emerged but soon to come this place will be full of vibrant colours and i am pleased i found a way to keep coming after destructive logging.
Spring has already has some old plants on the way out and i love what remains slowly loses its petals revealing more beauty. I have noticed this more this year than last, as winter has taught me a lot about individual cadence of life .
It feels like we are well into spring when the clover flowers are beginning to bloom especially the lilac ones. They are a bringer of luck and a little posy in a jug on the window cill brings natural beauty into the home You can make it into a tea or wine and also within potions to see the spirit world. especially for fairy contact.
I am like a buzzy bee during this time of year popping across all the different flowers in which the colours are my nectar. There are whites , purples and yellows but you have to investigate deeper to see variance of colours , little flamboyant embellishments that nature has painted.
Now the cotton grass clumps have begun to bloom and it is said the fairies use for their bedding which i expect they will need after partying in a few weeks time on summer solstice. Once a long time ago humans even used them for stuffing in pillows and mattresses whilst they may also be made into a tea from their roots for soothing digestion. InWW1 the absorbent properties were collected for wounds. They attract insects and butterflies too, seeing them come back is a welcome sight.
Dandelions are beauty queens of nature , i do not think that one moment is more beautiful than the next from humble beginnings and sharing its sunshine to it dying back as it then allows for the awe of its seeds heads. It is spring , it is make a wish time , how do you want live your life , what is it that you wish to attract , where would you like to visit and whom to meet ?
Long awaited lushness of the nature pond and still my Bull Rush is still standing proud as it gets its own wish to see a new spring. It felt like one of those video where something miraculously changes in a blink of an eye as the last time i came here there was a sprinkling of new leaves on the trees.
In the Wild , Painting
Abundance is never kept.
Christopher Evans
Top Right : Watercolour on A2 Watercolour paper
Top Left : Watercolour on 33 × 50 cm Fabrinno Watercolour Paper
Middle left : Watercolour on Leda Supplies 170 × 250 mm Sketchbook
Middle Right : Watercolour on 140 × 210 mm Watercolour Sketchbook
Bottom : Watercolour on A3 Canson Watercolour Paper
Hareshaw Linn
Oh my word , what a transformation from some ground cover and leaves into a vibrant jungle of foliage and scatterings of flowers that i thought i had entered. a magical realm . I wanted to show its lushness and take you into what looks like a fantasy setting and i am half expecting a unicorn or a mischievous pixie to arrive at any moment. You need not stray from the path but when you do you will find little woodlands of moss and lichen encrusted spindly entangled trees emerging from a sea of green.
Fern fiddleheads are everywhere in every size and shade of green ready to announce it self once more as the masters of the forest within the summer months. Ancient and knowing they are the real wise wizards of the forest. They take me back to the epic poem of “Battle of the Trees “ in which i once was a fern living in a ancient woodland for ten thousand years which created my innate love of these places.
My attention moves from the intimate and then scanning more openly as i was conscious that i wanted to express how wonderful the moments are walking through this place is and how you will experience it if you came. The old daunting and somewhat menacing tree in the winter turns into a old kind gentleman along with the woodland ground , the horizon and the sky are all green with a scattering of white rowan flowers dangling into my view.
There is not a moment to spare as you sit in wonder of the green space a new flower beckons you over hoping for a feature. “look at me” they all shout in unison competing with the constant chattering of birds , now content the woodland is awoken to its former glory they can begin their courting and building nests.
As you walk along the path intermittently its lined with bulging outward wild garlic foliage and perfectly formed white petals that you could smell your way along blindfolded.
Bull Crag Peninsular
I had all week kept an eye on the weather and it was not until Friday that the rain had cleared up for my monthly wander. The breeze doesn’t help taking photographs of plants in the wild and i spent most of it in a game of in-between a gust , i think it was a draw !
I had this notion from last year that there was phases of colours working their way through the seasons but to my delight along with masses of yellow buttercups along the verges , knapweed and thistles along with other lovely delicate lilac flowers were also to be found.
I cannot remember who said it to me whilst studying mindfulness that “Enough is a feast “ but at this moment the feast of colours melts my heart. We should always rejoice in abundance as long as we can share it and not be controlled by it.
There were whites popping up with cow parsley , some white clovers here and there and if you get closer to the ground sparkling between the grasses are delicate white flowers telling me that you do not need to big to be mighty.
My favourite of the day was this wonderful purple flower which is so tiny that i find it so remarkable how it packs so much colour and variance. This brings me back to how i fell in love with nature seeing such wonder and marvel. That mindfulness develops our curiosity of life , soaking up and savouring every part of something so miraculous. This helped me see myself as the same , that i am a wonder of this planet too.
