Summer 2023.
I’d been obsessing over water for months. Reflections, ripples, the way light breaks on a surface and does something completely unpredictable. I was convinced I could crack it. That if I painted enough ponds, enough rivers, enough rainy London streets, eventually I’d understand what water actually looks like.
That day I put on a white vest, went to Hampstead Heath alone, and walked every corner of it looking for the right spot. No plan. Just me and the park and the light.
It was hot. Properly hot, the kind of London summer day that feels like it was put there by mistake. And when I found this particular view of the pond I just stopped.
The water. The clouds reflected in it. The houses sitting quietly in the background. And right there in the foreground, completely unbothered, a duck.
I took my references and went home to paint it.
Hampstead Heath has been my place since I first arrived in London. I’ve run there, gone on terrible dates there, worked in an art shop nearby. It’s the first place this city felt like mine. So when I decided to enter a painting competition, it was obvious where I was going.
The competition came to nothing. These things usually do.
But this painting is the reason I stopped worrying about whether I could paint water. Clean washes. The reflections landing exactly where they should. The whole thing coming together in a way that still surprises me when I look at it.
This is the painting where I knew.
If Hampstead Heath has ever felt like your place too, even for an afternoon, you’ll understand why I needed to paint this particular corner of it.
Watercolour on paper mounted on wooden board. 50 x 50 cm. No additional frame needed. Ships worldwide.
