The Dream of the Rood shown yesterday is only a part of a larger ongoing project made up of several parts.
This double-page spread plus the one below, from the current sketchbook form fragments of a story that's been germinating in my mind for quite some time. A bit of a romantic quasi-legend that looks back towards a long forgotten solitary hermit who lived in a tiny two-roomed cottage deep in the trackless midst of a very ancient forest. It is the changes that the cottage sees is what the sequence of sketches is about; it's coming into being, subsequent decline then veneration as a Holy Site then the forest reclaiming the Site.
Many such ancient ruined or semi ruined chapels can be found all over the remoter parts of the British Isles. Many are marked on Ordnance Survey maps and some are attributed to some sage lost in the mists of antiquity. Needless to say I've made a number of on-site drawings or, if the weather won't permit or for that matter whilst travelling with others, a photograph is taken to work on later. I'm quite fascinated by these little chapels. What was it like living in them? and why were they put there in the first place and for that matter, what is the story behind it all?
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