Every so often we love to get away from the house and the city with all its noise and distractions and head for the hills or the forest for a camp out. We try to keep the stuff we bring to a minimum and it should all be fairly light too, especially if we are cycling or hiking to our campsite.

There is great sense of freedom and achievement to cycle from your home for a few hours and then find a beautiful spot to set up your camp. It’s hard to beat the contentment that comes from cooking your dinner over a fire and then sleeping out under the stars or canvas.

All of the drawings here were done using Indian Ink on watercolour paper, applied with sticks found in the forest.

Campsite on a river bend in Blessington featuring the front porch of our little dome tent.
Campfire cooking. We often use a stove too, but you can’t beat a good fire and the smoke keeps the midges and other biting insects at bay as the sun’s going down.
We found this little freshwater shrimp in the river beside the tent. He was about 5cms long.
The view from our hammock. A couple of weeks before this picture was drawn these trees were covered in pine cones which released large quantities of pollen powder whenever the wind gusted.
Advertisement