Originally titled ‘St. Jerome in the Wilderness’, I decided to remove The ‘St. Jerome’ and just leave the viewer to decide who the itinerant hermit is. I rarely use figures in my works, a decision I made many years ago. I want the viewer to concentrate on the landscape and not just see it as a backdrop or stage set.

The range of mountains in the distance are ‘real’, being the eastern fells of the Lake District. Again, this work came from a walk. It was October, but fields were still being cut for silage and this corduroy landscape seemed somewhat exotic.