Self-portraits, thirty-four years apart.

Rebuilding the website lately, I've been thinking about including an image or two from the distant past. I was rooting around at my parents' house over the weekend looking for old work. Of course, I didn't find the things I was looking for. I did however find this self-portrait, drawn when I was four. It rather amused me. I think it looks quite like me, too. Here it is alongside a self-portrait done thirty-four years later!

Self-portrait, aged four years.

Self portrait, aged thirty-eight.

Flurry of Gulls

Waves driven by the wind, and the flapping of wings that harness its power.

Flurry of Gulls, watercolour

Trees and Undergrowth in Watercolour

Studies of the foliage in the woods near to my home. Undergrowth and trees animated by the wind.

Painting, Sculpture, Etching, Ceramics

My mother (also a painter) is holding a private exhibition at her home at the end of the month. It features work by her and by three artist friends of hers. There's some seriously good stuff, so I thought I'd post a few images and links to their websites.

Joanna Williams

http://www.take10artists.co.uk/page_1276267797430.html

Richard Hayward
http://www.craftsguild.co.uk/sculpture/richard-hayward/

Anne Hayward
http://www.craftsguild.co.uk/prints/anne-hayward/

Graeme Hodgson
http://www.ghodgsonceramics.co.uk/galleries.htm

Emmanuel in the Rain

You may have noticed I'm working on a series of watercolour landscapes at the moment. This isn't to the exclusion of other threads that were begun earlier: they're being developed too... Anyway, this is another of the landscapes. It's Emmanuel Church, at Saltburn-by-the-Sea, from across the cliffs and through the rain.

Emmanuel in the Rain,
watercolour

Five Bird Farm (detail)

Five bird farm, detail, watercolour

Five Bird Farm

This is a farm atop the cliff down the road from me. I love the sense of perspective you get looking across fields - a real sense of depth. It's very like waves, I think, on the sea.

Five bird farm, watercolour

On Crow's Wings

On Crow's Wings, watercolour

Originally this started out as a landscape idea, but sitting drawing in the dunes I became fascinted by the crows. Then I knew what it was really about.

Fishing boat at Old Saltburn

Fishing boat at old Saltburn, watercolour

A Collection of Dog Portraits

Over the past few months I've been commissioned to draw portraits of people's dogs. I thought I'd post a few on here. It's something I take seriously. For me, my work has to be a marriage of the physical and the spiritual (a deeply unfashionable notion in some circles on both counts): it is about recording the physical with accuracy and intelligence but also about recording more than that; a living being's response to another, I suppose, and the complexity of empathetic understanding that entails. I like to spend time to get to know my subject (whatever it is); a response that functions on a physical level only - merely 'looks like' - isn't enough.

I particularly enjoyed drawing Zac. He was an old dog and a lovely chap.

Zac, graphite

Mollie, graphite

Alfie, graphite

Luna, graphite

Inca, graphite

Esmerelda, graphite

Storm from the Sea

Storm from the Sea,
watercolour

Fishing boats at Old Saltburn

Fishing boat on the beach below Huntcliff,
graphite

Fishing boat,
watercolour

Studies in Pencil

Bill, enlightened
graphite

Skull
graphite

More Studies - heads and skull

Laughing Woman, oil

Skull, oil

Head looking away, oil

Skull, oil

Studies

The beginnings of some ideas I've been knocking about over the last few days.

Skull, watercolour

Old Woman, pencil

Keep Walking, study, pencil

Keep Walking, study, pencil

Keep Walking, study, oil

My great, great uncle. Just in case anyone's interested...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Woodroffe

'Searching for Light' is the first in a series of life-size or near-life-size paintings through which I'm exploring the nature of the individual as enclosed by, or adrift in, less substantial space, and emotive narrative incident.

I won't be banging on about the 'meanings' of these paintings; I've always found such behaviour absurd; I would not expect a poet to be prepared to draw me a picture if I was unable to make sense of his poems. I hope instead that the relationships between the paintings' contained visual elements and my judgements of external context are sound enough that each functions alone as a means through which to convey meaning.

Searching for Light

Searching for Truth; an attempt to illuminate the darkness.