Stanley Dock Bascule Swing Bridge.

Initial sketch for a new project 'Ghosts'. Kinda like the long format for this one, might even try a 3:1 get a little more information either side.

Plein Air. Parkgate

Another piece for the show in Parkgate. I think these latest pieces are straddling the border between figuration and abstraction mainly because they are as much about how the landscape was seen as well as what was seen. Looking forward to my next trip out.

Studio Update

Just completed another of the larger pieces for the summer show in Parkgate on the Wirral, (61cm x61cm). This is part of the coast series which seems to be my ongoing project. I am currently looking to develop other areas for painting as much for the change of subject as well as the challenge, but the wilder places are where I think I will always return.

Postcards From Liverpool

I finally managed to gain access to the disused Stanley Dock on the Liverpool waterfront to do some prelim work for a new project I've been mulling over for quite some time. I want to do a series of paintings of the forgotten or disappearing locations from around the city, postcards from the edge so to speak.

I spent a grey afternoon alone Immersed in this haunting location, and couldn't help but see these structures as ghosts from the past. The old cotton warehouses, the grain and rice stores and the Stanley swing bridge are the souls of things which have a heart that beats in a time past. They are in a state of limbo waiting to become something else or simply erased. They carry the history of the ordinary men and women who built and worked them, a history we are still touching with our fingertips. I just want to run with the idea over the next few weeks and see what develops as I normally find my inspiration in the wilder barely touched or changed landscape.