Dockerills in Burgess Hill

sketching in my book

all painted up bigger on watercolour paper

About 7 years ago Dockerills hardware shop in Burgess Hill closed. A rare old shop, amongst the buildings in the oldest shopping area in the town, the loss has been mourned.

Luckily the building is still there in all its beauty and has recently been brought back to life with a new business. But here I am remembering it as it was.

three little watercolours of Sussex views

The catch by The Castle, Lewes

The very old school room, Plumpton

I'm in the mood for love, Brighton

For the first hang of the year in Chalk gallery I decided that I would work on three little watercolours of places local to me.
There have been some wonderful winter sunrises and sunsets lately and I think these might be influencing me!

Here is another painted for a friend's birthday card - a friend that loves to paint trees!

the birthday treet!

A painting of Borough Market, Southwark

In the autumn last year I spent a lovely day sketching around Southwark Cathedral and Borough Market with the Society of Graphic Fine Art
My first painting of 2016 was to work up these sketches and produce a painting to exhibit at Southwark Cathedral.

Here it is..and it is now up in the Cathedral refectory

SASBAH christmas card fantastic sales

I have just heard that the overall sales for SASBAH christmas cards with my paintings this Christmas totalled over 1800 packs. These were mostly sold from Eastbourne and Lewes cards for good causes shops, but also Uckfield, Hastings, Brighton, and smaller outlets.

Thank you so much to everyone who bought some, they have raised over £4000 for the charity.

My painting of the Christmas Swim is now available as a limited edition giclee print from my website.

A happy Christmas card for Harveys Brewery, Lewes

Happy Christmas...here are the Harveys Christmas views

creating a commissioned corporate card - for Harveys Brewery

I was excited to be commissioned by Harveys Brewery this year to paint their Christmas Card.
I had a personal tour in the spring and took lots of photos and saw several of the staff in action!

The challenge was to try to include everyone that works there, enjoying their annual Chrismas Hog roast in a snowy Brewery Yard.

Hard to decide which is the best angle and how to include anything, so we decided on back and front views, for both sides of the card.

Here are my very first rough plans...we wanted snow, all the people, the buildings and the vehicles.

Then it was time to draw them out again, larger and to put all the people in... First in pencil, and then overdrawn with the pen, and time to clean up the paper!

It is so exciting when I have the clean paper at this stage ready for the very first washes of paint.
I will share those with you soon...

Bradleys sweet shop - Sweet Memories

Here is the finished painting of Bradleys sweet shop in Burgess Hill...as I remember it!

Many a visit was had back here in the 70's!