This was an illustration project I completed in 2002 that I recently returned to look at as I am preparing for some new landscape painting work. At the time of completing this I was very much into working in mixed media to experiment before a final piece, but in this case I stuck with the mixed media. I found the combination of collage (mainly newspaper), acrylics, ink and chalk pastels really good for capturing an illustrative graveyard scene quickly and allowed for looseness. Although I started with representational drawing of St Mary’s Church in Cottingham (East Riding of Yorkshire) and Cottingham Cemetery in my sketchbook, I quickly started to try drawing without taking my pencil off the page, following the outline of the head / grave stones and trees and drawing without taking your eyes off the subject matter (great drawing exercise) to capture the jumble of gravestones and trees.