Book review: Trees in Winter

Richard Shimell, a former journalist, discovered woodcuts and discovered walking in winter, put the two together and has a winning formula.

The first part of the book is a nature recovery memoir, as the author relates his diffcult relationship with his father and his solace found in nature, particularly in south west England.

There are around 40 prints reproduced in the book, almost all illustrating trees in minimal landscapes.

Printmaking taught him to look more closely. He works from photos, drawing the tree onto the print block as a silhouette. There's no bark, leaves or texture. What there is is atmosphere.

The Northern Lights coloured backgrounds are on-trend. The simplified structures of the trees show great skill as woodcuts, and tame nature, which is satisfying for the viewer.

There's something there of the bucolic English countryside, encapsulated in hundreds of scratches in the wood block, with the slightest colouring, echoing our winters, or discovering them for anyone who has never experienced the colder months in our rural places.