Brutalised tree stump sketch, plein air Monday 3rd March 2014

This sketch was made on Monday on an absolutely beautiful still sunny day. I was apprehensive as I walked towards the park as I didn’t know if my tree stump would still be there owing to the efficiency of the Lancashire groundsmen. I was fully expecting cleared and refilled ground to be there. However, I was wrong. The tree stump had been hacked at some more, but had been put back into it’s hole albeit at a strange angle. I’m not quite sure what all this means to me. I’m holding it all lightly and seeing how it fits to my Anxiety/ Release meditations for Artipeeps. I just drew. The feeling of being there was cool in the dappled sunlight. The colours speak to me as I write this, and the feeling of the experience comes back into my memory. The stillness, the birdsong. The man asking me if I’d finished as I walked back from the park. We touch so many people’s lives without even knowing it. He wouldn’t normally have spoken to me in an ordinary sense. He’d noticed me though. The respect of everyone whenever I draw outside. People fall silent as they walk past. They know something is going on. Just me and the trees or what is left of them. I wish the feeling could last for ever. The drawing itself tells me when it wants to stop, I’m almost saying,’ Not yet, not yet’.