Ashley Jackson's Watercolour Sketches is, as its title suggests, a casual collection of the artist's work. As he explains in the book, he tends to spend sunny days in the studio and cloudy or rainy days trudging the hills and moors of Yorkshire, England, where he captures the moody landscape as inspiration strikes.

"I suppose you could say that I use my sketchbook in the same way that others create a diary of words," he writes, noting the sketches included in this collection are "a reflection of my relationship with the Yorkshire landscape." He is, he notes in a description of a sketch of Wether Fell and Penyghent, "compelled" to capture these scenes, which he has done for more than 50 years.

His brief notes that accompany each sketch are sometimes descriptive of the piece itself or of his mood when he sketched it. At other times he tells a bit about the town or natural features in the painting. And sometimes he simply waxes philosophical about his work.

"There is so much to read from the landscape if we just take the time to look," he says beside a sketch titled "Old Barns" on the road to Grassington. "As I get older, my need to absorb and make memories of these landscapes is like a [sic] insatiable thirst. There is so much we miss when we believe we have time on our side. As we grow older, these are the simple things we relish, should it all be taken from us in the blink of an eye."

Jackson has a nice eye for color and texture, and his sketches have a rough, warm, easygoing feel about them that is pleasant to share. The scenes, natural landscapes and villages alike, have a loose framework that leaves room for the eye to fill in the details -- by no means photo-realistic, you'd still recognize the places if you saw them.

My favorite is a stark, blue-green piece called "Marsden Moor," and his accompanying text is an apt description. "If you ever wish to escape from the worries and fast pace of everyday life, this is the place to go," he writes. "Take a moment to close your eyes and listen to nature, the wind followed by the cries of the lapwing and curlew. Then reopen your eyes and absorb the colours, it truly fills the heart and calms the mind. Here I am at peace with the world."

I'm glad he shared it with us.

According to the biography that concludes this collection, Jackson opened his first gallery in 1963 and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts when he was 26. Now nearly 80, it reads, "he has lost none of his drive not only to encourage people to take up art, but to appreciate the beauty of the landscape around us." He received the British Empire Medal in the Queen's birthday honours of June 2017.