This piece was named because of the mass of wonderful and beautiful black beetles which greeted me whilst painting this piece!

(I have since been told that they are ‘Dor’ or ‘Doris’ Beetles)

At first I spend a little time marvelling at my first visitor but then suddenly I was engulfed (in a hectic and ‘kinda’ wonderful way!)
They were dropping out of the trees at a tremendous rate, crawling all over my clothes and canvas and I was particularly fighting to keep them out of my paint/palette!
The almost stranger thing was that painting in this same woodland a year later I encountered masses of the same beetle – breeding season in this spot ?⁠
.⁠
I have been on a bit of a journey with this canvas; scroll to see the re-workings over the last few years.
What I particularly like is the cosy, slightly mysterious, intimate darkness of this woodland view.
To quote my daughters favourite book ‘in the deep-dark-wood’ (the parents will know what I mean :)⁠