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