Wing, nr Oakham

This was a commission picked up during my tour of Rutland and Leicestershire in September when it was unusually hot. The photograph you can see was taken from standing on top of a neighbors wall over the road, which was really the only suitable place to take it. The photo was taken on a cloudy day and I wanted to paint it as if the conditions were a bit brighter, enhancing the foliage and the brickwork. The sky was painted with a wash of Cerulean blue, introducing some yellow ochre towards the horizon with a few clouds mixing paynes gray with ultramarine and a dash of crimson.

I then worked from the distance to foreground. Sap green and crimson being predominantly used for the foliage, yellow ochre and burnt sienna for the brickwork. The darker accents were added using a mixture of paynes gray and ultramarine.

Very pleased with the finished result.

This is what my customer said:

"...Have kept forgetting to thank you very much for the house painting, safely
received on schedule and now at our local gallery for framing. It is a
lovely piece of work and will give us all a lot of pleasure..."

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Bredons Norton

This house can be found in the village of Bredons Norton, in Worcestershire. After googling this village I found the following words to describe it:

The whole area is an oasis of peace and tranquility, a secret corner of England, where time seems to stand still yet the modern world is not forgotten.

That just about sums it up I think.

The finished painting was altered slightly from the original photograph. A large barn was removed to give a far more appealing background - the benefits of artistic license in action!

Rous Lench

A house in the unusually named Rous Lench. A village in my home county of Worcestershire. The day of my visit was mixed with sunshine and showers. I caught a sunny spell when I took the photo from which I worked for this painting.

The trees in this painting is a good example of how my portrayal of foliage in general has developed. Moving away from attempting to pick out each individual leaf as you would see in a photograph and more towards giving an impression of the foliage by picking out the odd leaf shape against a graded wash of colour.

Church Farm, Kington Langley, Wiltshire

This reminds me of a late summers day in Wiltshire.


It's a wedding venue set in the countryside. Couples who choose this as their wedding venue will have the option of commissioning their own watercolour produced from photographs taken on their wedding day.

I particularly like the way the tent is highlighted by the sun from the right exaggerated by the dark background of the trees. The closing in of autumn is hinted at by the addition of yellow ochre in the tree canopy.