It has taken me quite a while to be able to draw after the events in Brussels of 22nd March. I had visited that fair city very recently and enjoyed drawing there and taking photographs as I have shared on this blog. I am still processing everything that has happened and will be for some time as will so many others. My thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims always. I could only make a drawing on the Good Friday of that week and am sharing it here. I called it ‘Circle of Thorns’. I made it using oilbars and graphite. It came from a sketch done on the spot of an arrangement of twigs from my customary walk in the park in Clitheroe. The whole week reminded me of how I felt on that traumatic week when Derrick Bird shot so many people in Eskdale in June 2010. I was staying in that beautiful valley on a retreat. We were in our little bubble responding to nature when it happened. I was at St.Bees beach trying to draw but couldn’t ,then helicopters hovered over me looking for him I learned later. Two women cowered by the promenade and told us what was unfolding. I couldn’t respond artistically to the beach of my homevillage that day even before I knew the reality. We sense on some level the energies around us. It has been the same with Brussels. Here are the drawings Click to enlarge.