North York Moors Art

Often misnamed 'North Yorkshire Moors', the North York Moors contains one of the largest expanses of heather moorland in England and Wales covering an area of over 44,000 hectares†. So it's no surprise the area is a National Park and protected.

The moors are a big scale landscape, with big skies to match, and surprisingly challenging to paint. I think it's the subtle contouring and vastness of the moor tops that makes it hard to communicate their height in an artwork.

Without a sense of height in a painting, the feeling of what it's like to be there is lost imho*Short for 'in my humble opinion'. When there, the sensation of being up high is with you all the time in reality. On a sunny day when the heather is flowering, the epic moorland takes your breath away.

I've been sizing up the area for years, trying to fathom the best way to approach it, and what parts of it offer the best painting opportunities for my skill level.

I believe, rightly or wrongly, there are some subjects that need a certain level of artistic skill in order to make a decent fist of a painting of them. Some art subjects are easy, some hard – the North York Moors is a hard one to do well.

Perhaps it's confidence, though confidence without the skill to match is a dangerous thing. Since dabbling tentatively on location (see paintings here), I'm now a seasoned 'en plein‑air'*An art term meaning 'in the fresh air' painter, and feel ready to test myself properly.