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Watercolours offer a glance at the eternal. A stroke of colour, a single found line of charcoal or the rough surface of cartridge can bring us almost unwittingly to the truth of the moment without us knowing. Some watercolours are over in the deft sweep of a brush before you quite knew where you were going in much the same way as the sun suddenly coming out from behind the clouds and you catching a glimpse of forever and then its gone, leaving you wondering what created that moment, being awake or the sun. Good watercolours do the same sort of thing.
Serenity
“Serenity” came to me as one of a series of six that happened when I went to stay in the farthest flung edge of Wales in a little hotel overlooking the sea called Druidstone Haven. I took the topmost room that had a balcony out into the roof where the wind swirled and howled and a place I would watch the sun swim into the sunset and rise again in the watery dawn. No matter how wild the night before, the dawn always brought with it a sense of calm, a promise of a newness no matter what had been before.
Watercolour, 455 x 420 mm including frame
Family
Watercolour, 405 x 405 mm including frame
Education
Watercolour, 385 x 390 mm including frame
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Whispering
Watercolour, 530 x 440 mm including frame
Chatting
Watercolour, 460 x 405 mm including frame
Druidstone Blues
Watercolour, 480 x 420 mm including frame
Vessels
Like flags and fortune, America is known for making statements about rags to riches in one way or another. Little vignettes that otherwise go unnoticed or have a visual discretion become announced in American time. A boom dock is a place to behold, and an anonymous little boat becomes a vessel for setting out on an adventure. Nothing is quite as simple as it looks in the opulence of America.
Watercolour, 450 x 440 mm including frame
Martha’s Vineyard
Watercolour, 460 x 395 mm including frame
Nantucket
Watercolour, 430 x 390 mm including frame
Pontoon, Cape Cod
Watercolour, 445 x 430 mm including frame
Summer shore
Watercolour, 510 x 450 mm including frame
Boomdocks
Watercolour, 415 x 405 mm including frame
Australia 1
Travelling outback, hitching across the 12000 kilos of the Simpson desert with a bottle of water and the aboriginal compass of trusting my next step, this is what I tried to capture the essence of in this little watercolour sketches. That and the ineffable of course.
Watercolour
Australia 2
Watercolour
Australia 3
Watercolour
Australia 4
Watercolour
Venice
This small island made up of a hundred tiny islands brings out mesmerising calm through its endless slips of water knocking gondolas underneath and the multitude of bridges used in some great game that the gods play instead of chess to get travellers lost and win points. Venice will always hold you to account, never forget you and promise you that which you have promised yourself over and over, the sacred hullaballoo of personal space, terracotta flagstones and fine crystal wine.
Watercolour
South Africa
South Africa is all about big. Big people, big weather and big game plains. Even the snail is as big as your hand. But there is no one in a rush in this big heat. Jugs of lime water and aloe offer fresh cleansing drinks, the shade says ‘stop right here and listen’ and always someone is doing a menial task as though they were sweeping for royalty. The world is divided between those that have peace bought by huge barbed wire security with threats of shooting trespassers, and those with absolutely nothing knowing the peace of wandering the sidewalks free to sit in the company of others sharing an apple.
Watercolour
