Wainwright in Colour

Over the past decade, artist Andy Beck has been working on a major project to paint watercolour sketches of every view drawn by Alfred Wainwright in his seven Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells.

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WHAT DO YOU THINK WAINWRIGHT WOULD HAVE MADE OF YOUR PROJECT?

Even if he didn’t like my style of painting I would like to think that he would approve of my exploration of the fells and that we could compare notes about how the landscape has changed, if at all. I have not been ticking off the tops in a mad dash and I think he would give me credit for that. I have a feeling that AW would have liked to dabble a little more in watercolour (there is one example that I have seen of him adding colour to his line drawings and that was from back in 1942). When I came up with the idea I did consult with the daughters of Betty Wainwright, his second wife, and it seems that she approved of the idea. If Wainwright didn’t approve then I would have thought that on one of my many visits to Haystacks I would have been struck by lightning by now!

ARE YOU A LONG-TIME ADMIRER OF THE PICTORIAL GUIDES?

I got my first Pictorial Guide in the late 1980s. As that is now three decades ago, I suppose that is a fairly long time, but I didn’t get my last Guide until my wife bought me The Northern Fells in 2000 as a Christmas present. But, yes, I am a fan of his work. His style, clever design, draughtsmanship and humour are not all discovered by the casual reader; I think it takes careful and deliberate reading to discover these intricacies within the books.

WHICH WAS YOUR FIRST PAINTING?

The first was the one that inspired the whole project, the view of Red Pike from near Black Crag (from