Black Rocks: My Artistic Training Ground

Black Rocks, Derbyshire.

I scrambled the slope with eagerness, rucksack slung over my shoulder, to reach my favourite observation point. I removed my jacket, went into my bag for my sketchbook, and charcoal box and selected a chunky piece of willow charcoal. I sat down, studied the surroundings, seeing how the sun was beating down on the landscape, listening to the birds tweeting, horses neighing, distant explosions from the quarry, people chatting, high pitched whizzing of remote control cars. I began to attack the page, tracing my eyes intermittently between the paper and the rock that towered before me.

Sketch of the rocks, 2026.

I reacquainted myself with the huge boulder on the left you can see in the photograph. I am always drawn to this imposing rock which is precariously balanced on the side, it's always the study I do as my first sketch on a Black Rocks drawing trip, and I wondered how my approach to it would change since my last visit.

Sketch of the rocks, 2026

Then I turned my attention to the rocks on the right of my position, I dived in straight away, using the side of a charcoal stick, rubbing it in, then adding the details as I progressed. My approach begins with a rugged gestural method with a big charcoal stick, and then a more delicate consideration of the smaller detailed marks once the larger shapes are defined.

Sat on my observation point.

This way of working came back to me surprisingly quick, it felt liberating to push the charcoal around the page with my hands and engage with making work in a very physical way. I was beginning to reach a flow state of which I think can only be achieved by going somewhere and drawing what I see.

Rock climber setting up ropes, 2026.

As the session progressed I began to notice more the people who were coming and going, a couple of rock climbers appeared and began setting up ropes on the rocks, so I captured the human element in the landscape. There was a constant stream of people, walkers, photographers, remote control cars, groups of lads with their shirts off, quarrying activity popping off in the distance near the horizon. This combination of landscape, vehicles, people, animals, vegetation, with the natural wonder of the rocks makes it a great artistic training ground, and a perfect theatre of drawing.

Horses grazing in a field adjacent to the rocks, 2022.

Sketch from 2022, rock climbers watching a descent from the rocks.

My father Franklin Wilson, a sculptor, introduced Black Rocks to me as a place of limitless artistic inspiration. He also brought his students here as a teacher at the University of Derby.

As I was drawing I could picture him in my mind standing somewhere near the rocks drawing or stood in the trees taking photographs. He obviously brought me to this spot to draw with him for a reason

Black Rocks, Derbyshire, the perfect artistic training ground.

Sketch from late afternoon in autumn 2022.

View facing towards Cromford, with quarries in view, the one on the right notably has become active since my last visit.

A sketch of the rocks from winter, early 2014.

Black Rocks facing towards Cromford with quarry in the background.

Black Rocks, 2026.