Autumn Painting Demonstration

In October the Woods will be resplendent with autumn colour. Come and spend a morning with us in the Woods and watch professional artist John Blandy create a painting of one of our beautiful beech trees.

John Blandy is a landscape artist who follows trees through time.  He followed a veteran Beech tree opposite the chalet on a monthly basis during the year 2018-19.  On Saturday October 29th at 10am, John will give a demonstration of working from this Beech tree.

Based in London and Oxford, John Blandy has been working in Wytham Woods, since 2016. To date, John has followed 5 iconic trees as suggested by Nigel Fisher Conservator of the Woods: the Broad Oak, the Hornbeam at Gibson Gate, the Ash on Rough Common, and the Beech Tree opposite the Chalet in the Wood.  John has shown regularly with Oxford Art Weeks in the Sawmill Barn in Wytham Woods, and is a founder member of The Arborealists, a nationally renowned group of tree artists. Wytham Woods with the University of Oxford presented an exhibition of John’s pictures from the Woods: Pillars of the Forest, at the Barn Gallery in St John’s College, Oxford, in June 2021.

In the demonstration, John will be working at his easel in pastel on paper and on site. The veteran beech stands at a crossroads of pathways in front of the Chalet. Bundled together into a planting pit a group of saplings have grown together to form a wide-spreading and imposing tree. John will aim to depict this tree within a 2 hour timeframe and will discuss his ideas and way of working.