John Denver

Charcoal, January 1996
From a photograph on a record sleeve.

Coprinus

A pencil sketch of some Coprinus toadstools at the pavement's edge. Date unknown.

Painted Pebbles

I first painted pebbles in the 1970s. After a gap of about twenty years I did some more and, for a brief spell, sold them as part of a craft business that my wife and I set up. Then the supply of pebbles ran out because we don't have any shingle beaches locally.
These three are all that remain of all the ones that I did. They survived because I gave them to Mum and then inherited them again when she died. They depict a Puffin; her favourite butterfly - a Camberwell Beauty (not that she ever saw one); and her favourite duck - the Ruddy Duck with its bright blue beak - one of which lived on one of the Cheshire ponds that she and Dad used to sit by in their car.

Autumn Leaf

Pastel October 1995 (8" x 6")
Using leaves, twigs and acorns picked up outside my son's school I painted a number of pastels. It would have been nice to have been able to take the best bits from each of them and create one really good painting but they had different backgrounds so I can't even make a cheat one on the computer!

Barton Bank

Watercolour May 1997
One of a series of paintings I did of Barton Bank, a splendid national hunt horse that I photographed at the Grand National meeting at Aintree. Not only a splendid-looking animal but one which brought me in bob or two on quite a few occasions!

My younger daughter and I once painted this same picture side-by-side when we were both learning how to use watercolours to their best advatage.

Marjorie Blamey

They say that to copy someone is the sincerest form of flattery. So this is a piece of flattery of Marjorie Blamey who I consider to be one of the best flower artists around. I drew it over 20 years ago in felt tip pen and crayon.

Mistakes

 
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. art is knowing which ones to keep." Scott Adams.

I came across this quotation on Tesori Trovati's blog and it reminded me of a very fortuitous mistake I made when scanning some time ago. Definitely modern art...

Embroidery

I took up embroidery around the year 2000 but soon arthritis caused me to have difficulty and as a result I had to stop after a fairly short spell. A shame because I thoroughly enjoyed doing these serviettes. Perhaps one day my thumb will become flexible enough again to work the needle - fingers crossed (or perhaps uncrossed!)

A Barn

I have done pencil sketches my whole life and this is just one of many dozens of pictures of barns - it is, however, quite unusual in that it has survived the regular clear-outs.

1993.

Rabbit sketch

Pencil sketch

Spring 2002

Charles Bronson

Pastel 1993 (6" x 4")
Charles Bronson is one of my partner's heartthrobs. In a moment of weakness I painted this for her from a photo! Perhaps I will do Felicity Kendall or Sandra Bullock for myself some time.