Happy New Year

Happy New Year and a special thank you to all of you that bought my art last year. This year is a special birthday year for me and I've got lots planned so I'll be doing more travel and hope to paint more buildings outside Cumbria though there are still many buildings I want to paint in West Cumbria. I've had my eye on a number of industrial sites like the one I painted of Florence Mine last year. 

This year I'm intending to spend more time in Kirkcudbright and hope to have another exhibition there. So I decided to paint from my photos taken during my last visit. Can you believe that as soon as I put up my photos on the Internet, they have sold. 

I'm going to call my next exhibition...."Beyond the Wicker Man" and include images from the surrounding area of Kirkcudbright such as Wigtown and Gatehouse of Fleet that featured in the film.  

I'm also going to paint the places I visited as a child in the area. I took this photo of Cardoness Castle last year. Then to my surprise found the old photo of my sister and I taken at the castle more than 50 years ago.  

I've just completed my first commission of the year, a second painting for one of last years customers. 

I've also painted The Battery at Seabrows in Maryport, the home of the Senhouse Roman Museum. I remember visiting with my Mum when it first opened and then taking School groups when I was teaching. I also organised INSET after school sessions with Time Team's Lindsay Allason-Jones when I was a Professional Development Officer for Cumbria Education Authority. 

A couple of year's ago I painted a row of houses called Tenhouses in Oldham. No 6 and 7 belonged to my family. My grandad was born in No 6. Imagine my delight when I visited the house to take photographs and there were photos of my family on the wall in the lounge. The woman who owned the house had no idea who the people in the photographs were but liked them so had kept them up. 

I'd like to paint all the houses in West Cumbria that my family have owned at some point, on a long sheet of Bockingford paper this year. I've been thinking about doing it for a while after the success of my painting of all the lighthouses along the west Cumbrian coast.