Welcome to my web site
My work falls into a small number of basic categories which you can explore through the links below.
West coast Scotland
Sailing in a small boat can be difficult enough. Sailing, drawing and painting can be a fascinating combination. The elements constantly play tricks, conspiring to add other dimensions such as sound, movement, more subtle changes to forms and colours. Time is important. A weather front may have to pass through, and tides checked to pass a headland or enter a loch. Time to discuss the overall trim and safety of the boat, and select the most appropriate art materials from behind my bunk. A camera would seem to be the right tool in these circumstances, but the selection of form and colour through lens and filter can be limiting and has less appeal for me.
Collage
A great deal of my sketching and watercolour work has been done from a moving boat, but sometimes the the subject moves past me as tide creeps round rocks, or sea creatures swim up and watch as in the sea zoo collages. You get to know the subjects quite intimately.
Travel
The noise of moving ice is quite a surprise. Also the intensity of colour as the temperature drops. Birds land on the ice to travel with the tide. It can be very difficult to sketch in these conditions. As the boat moves between the flows the noise on aluminium is deafening and the ice very sculptural.
Hot climates also means one has to be focused and crayons can get very soft and occasionally pecked by peacocks.
Menai Strait
Departure and return are some of the delights of the Menai Strait. To make a night passage from the Isle of Man and arrive in the Strait at dawn, or make an evening landfall at Caernarvon bar with a storm behind the boat, then picking out the Llanddwyn sillouette and winking lights of the buoys across the bar, are very special moments from many.
Portraits
Children move in a very unselfconcious way. As with being on the water, you never quite know what will be recorded on the page or board. Something sculptural, thoughtful or candid or just the rough and tumble jotting which express energy.
Plant and creatures
I love succulent plants with their fascinating variations and elusive bloom on the leaves, with even an occasional quiet flower. Bright coloured flowers and unexpected connections with natural found objects also give me plenty of opportunity for free watercolours. All the plants featured in these paintings have been, and are still growing in my own garden.