One of London's river bridges that links the South Bank to The Aldwych as seen from one of the balconies of the Royal Festival Hall. It was a cold grey day when I was there making some hasty sketches and taking photographs. This is one take on the river and the bridge. I worked close by for several years, so this place has a personal memory for me. I read somewhere that this particular incarnation of the Waterloo Bridge was built and completed during WW2, and that the labour force was largely women, and as a consequence it is affectionately know as the Women's Bridge.
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| Waterloo Bridge from the Festival Hall Oil on canvas 60 x 45 cm POA |
Doubtful Sound
There is a wonderful fjord in the South Island of New Zealand where Captain Cooke is reputed to have observed from the sea that he would probably never be able to get out if he entered it, so he sailed on by. We visited (from the land side) on a damp moody day, which turned into bright sunshine while we were there. The sides are awesomely steep, scared by so called tree slides and decorated by precipitous streamS and waterfalls after the morning rain. A wonderful subject to paint, and although this is not the view Cooke would have had, I have tried to capture is serenity and depth.
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| Doubtful Sound, New Zealand Oli on canvas 65 x 90 cm POA |
And here are two small watercolour sketches of the alps in the South Island. The terrain is boundlessly exciting and I can't imagine ever tiring of drawing and painting it.
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| Terminal moraine on the Fanz Josef glacier Watercolour on paper |
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| The Southern Alps Just down the road from the end of Franz Josef Watercolour on paper |
Fuerteventura
From a high peak, a sheltered mirador gave a fine view across the island to distant Lanzarote. Once covered in trees, now gone, this is a barren island where farmers have to work hard to make a living. The whole landscape has a dusting of sand and looks like the wilderness in the middle east. In fact the sand in Canaries has been blown there from the Sahara: this is Africa, but away from the continent.
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| Fuerteventura: from the mirador Oil on canvas 45 x 60 cm POA |
Woolacombe, North Devon
One of my favourite coast lines, Woolacombe itself has a beach almost 2 miles long, and to its north there is a series of small coves, and this is one of them. Visiting last week, the sea was wild and the wind howled from the great storm that had made landfall in the south west. During a moment of rare sunshine and no rain, we watched the water boil and loose its strength on the rocks, but there were massive amounts of spume flying around, created from seaweed mashed and destroyed by the heaving seas. No surfing for anybody during the week.
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| Wild sea at Woolacombe, Devon Oil on canvas 50 x 40 cm POA |
