Reigate Priory Blue Bell path, 2001. This is a re visitation of the scene for the water colour pastel sketch of bluebells May 2000.

After the foot and mouth restrictions in Priory Park were lifted, I sat on 24 (recorded) occasions between the 8 of April to the 10 May to paint this. When I began it the leaves on the trees hadn`t emerged yet, and the bluebell carpet was green.

I started off (such was my technique) with the far trees first applying raw umber with a plastic scouring pad and brush. As I progressed towards the foreground over the month the leaves and bluebell flowers emerged. So in away, to follow the path is to go backwards in the season.

As I was painting it a lady walking her dog (who stopped to look on a couple of occasions) asked how much did my paintings sell for. When I showed her the back of the canvass board (where I write a painting diary), she said "perhaps I can`t afford it". She was sincere enough to later on take me to a specialist printers to get it reproduced, unfortunately the copy quality wasn`t really up to the mark, I told them to bin it.