The fifth in my Northern Monk Patrons Project Culinary Adventures series, this one was a collaboration with Harewood House just on the outskirts of Leeds in West Yorkshire and the beer even used ingredients harvested from the gardens.

This series has been really pushing what I include in my landscapes, and this is the first inclusion of snow (when there was none) as well as animals and birds as key to the artwork and composition.

The brief was probably the most specific yet of the series, Harewood and festive. Having not been to the estate for a very long time, even though it's not far away, it was lovely to go and emerse myself there for the day, this was in September so it was not snowy! I wanted to keep the screen print wintery but timeless so decided on a simple composition for the house to take centre stage.

I'd already set my mind on including red kites, I always associate them with the area as it used to be one of the places you were pretty much guaranteed to see one of these birds glide around. While I was there I approached one on the grounds and it just circled me, it was amazing and slightly worrying at the same time...Iprobably shouldn't have got so close but it did allow me to take photos which I used for this image.

In my head I was really drawn to the back of the house but as I waited at the front for the light to change, the grounds were due to close, I just kept having these wonderful moments watching the deer come out on the front lawn. So many deer! They must totally take over this area as the tourists disappear. When it came to drawing I remembered that lovely experience, so the deer had to be included, and the image was taking from my time there.