Brimham Rocks

Yep, ‘Brimham Rocks‘, both literally and metaphorically for me. This is a significant sketch from 2013, when I’d recently started using watercolours. It records a really lovely day spent with friends in Yorkshire. The morning was spent at a climbing wall in Harrogate, which was great fun, followed by a walk and some ‘real’ climbing for our son (then aged 12) on the Rocks, let by the lovely Rhiannon.

I got out the sketchbook and sat myself down to wrestle with the scene.  My sketch buddy Andy tells me that this was the moment when he (also present and, at the time, a lapsed artist) asked himself why on earth he wasn’t doing likewise. Soon after, he picked his pen and brushes back up in earnest, and continues to employ them with gusto to this day.

So, this sketch is a very welcome memory of a really great day out, and the pinpointing of a significant turning point in someone’s sketch history. I’m still delighted about that. For me it’s a reminder that actions have consequences, sometimes demonstrably positive, whether or not we know it, or intend it so, at the time.