
I’ve been moved to paint this by the present situation in the Ukraine. Who knows whether this building still stands, but it’s St Andrew’s church in Kyiv, a building which fairly embodies the national colours of a country which is in all our thoughts at the moment.
For something different – a painting of an early pillar box – the early Victorian hexagonal ‘Penrose’ type. An enjoyable exercise in realistic art.
“A Lady in Waiting” Time for another Locomotive portrait, I decided. Thiis one was done digitally again, but finished in a mixed media style – pencil, chalk and watercolour wash. This depicts one of the Great Western Railway’s Dean SIngles No. 3035, “Beaufort” waiting on shed in all splendour of her late Victorian livery.
“Golden Days – Leaving Cornwall” My latest painting, the Royal Albert Bridge in the 1890s. A combination of Railway and Landscape art. A change from my usual locomotive portraits – but railway art none the less. An express leaving Cornwall in the 1890s.
My latest digital painting. Wrightwick Manor, Near Wolverhampton, England. Built in Tudor Revival style late in the 19th century by the industrialist and paint Magnate, Theodore Mander. Donated to the National Trust by his son Geoffrey in 1937 when the house was less than 50 years old, it now houses a renowned collection of Pre-Raphaelite art.
On this occasion I managed to get my very (over?) precise painting hand to do something more or less impressionist. An Australian street scene for Australia Day – Fremantle Town Hall in the 1970s.
“Two Kings in Waiting”… or express travel how it used to be. Two ex Great Western Railway ‘King’ Class locomotives await their departure fro Paddington station around about 1960, give or take a couple of years. The nearer one is ‘King Richard III’ the further’s identity remains unknown.
I was tring for a more impressionistic style with this painting, and I’m not sure that comes across in the finished work, though I’m quite pleased with it. There is substantially less detail here than I’ve sometimes done in the past – there must be, it was completed much more quickly, but I’m not sure that the difference isall that noticeable. There might be a message in that!