Paintings
-
Christmas Tree
The corner of this earth that I call home is awash with these things at this time of year. Often they are very pretty, occasionally they are rather garish, only rarely are they disappointing. The tree on which this painting is based was (and almost certainly still is at time of writing) in Place Kléber,…
-
Quiet Street
The Christmas Market in Strasbourg was busy enough this year, but the punters tend to favour afternoons and evenings for their festive purchases, so earlier in the day it is still possible to find quiet streets even near the city centre. This street (Rue de l’Epine) was genuinely empty when my phone snapped this photograph…
-
Begijnhof
This peaceful courtyard is to be found in Bruges, a place I have visited, painted and drawn many times. This tranquil place originally housed a community of lay women called beguines, and still today it is home to a community of Benedictine nuns and other likeminded women. I’m not sure that my painting really captures…
-
Blooming Tiles
Or perhaps “Blue Ming Tiles” – except of course these are not Ming tiles! This ceramic floral pattern is to be found on a courtyard wall in the Toshhovli Palace (or Tach Khaouli Palace) in Khiva, Uzbekistan. The palace was built in the 1830s, so I can only suppose that these tiles are also about 190 years…
-
Hohenschwangau
There is a very pretty castle at Hohenschwangau (and of course another fairytale castle nearby called Neuschwanstein) – but this is the view from the castle, looking out over a swan (schwan to the locals) fountain – one of many swan motifs in the castle grounds. I had intended this to be just a pen…
-
Alpine Meadow
The countryside around Füssen, near the southern edge of Germany, has much to recommend it. There are green rolling hills dotted with many picturesque lakes (mainly in Germany), there is the ever present backdrop of the mountains (mainly across the border in Austria), and of course there are the fairy tale castles of Neuschwanstein and…
-
Art Deco IV
Slightly different from my previous Art Deco designs, this is a painting of the interior of a former house – now the van Buuren Museum – in Brussels. The house is full of some wonderful period art, but what particularly caught my eye during our recent visit was the light in the stairwell. Now, I…
-
Croquet
This sport occupies quite a bit of what might otherwise be my spare time, so I suppose it is inevitable that I would eventually draw or paint a game. This particular painting is based very loosely on a photo taken during a recent match at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon,…
-
Surviving a Drought?
This image is a nonsense of course, not only because waterlilies would never survive these conditions nor “float” on the dried lakebed, but also because the composition was conceived during a long period of hot and dry weather (yes – even in England we have at times too much sun!) but drawn and painted as…
-
Blue Man
I have mentioned before (and will no doubt mention again!) the jeopardy inherent in producing a portrait, in that the face not only has to look normal, it also has to resemble the portrait’s subject. This particular example is kind of middling in that respect. It looks somewhat like the real face, but is probably…
-
Bunting
This is a view along Church Street in Hereford, looking towards the cathedral, which is where I spotted this bunting whilst visiting the city in early June. I’m not really sure why the bunting was up – there had been celebrations for the 80th anniversary of VE Day a few weeks earlier, so maybe the…
-
Classical Ambience
I recently attended a lunch at Hylands House near Chelmsford in Essex. Apart from the enjoying the event itself, I was rather curious to see the interior of a house that I first new as a near ruin when I was a child, but which is now returned to something close to what I presume…
Doodling ... 