My approach to painting when I am in the open air is to let the landscape come to me – and then go with it. If it does not do that I walk on, for I want to create a painting not a picture.
When out one day on Wessenden Moor, I found that the evocative fragrances of wild flowers, heather and burnt bracken were enhancing my senses. My sight, my smell, my hearing all seemed crystal clear as I stood looking down the valley. The landscape was beckoning and I did not want the moment to pass. I wanted to spread my arms and swoop like a great condor in flight, absorbing the sheer beauty of it all, seizing it and freezing it for ever. The moors below gave the illusion of huge mammals basking shoulder to shoulder in the sun and, as I put paint to paper; I tried to portray this image.
Extract taken from “A Love Affair” – Ashley Jackson’s Yorkshire Moors Dalesman Publishing first edition reprinted 2005
