I’ve always been a country boy at heart. The city scares me to be honest, but I’m strangely drawn to big industrial architecture, it often looks a bit otherworldly to me.This little acrylic sketch is a view across to the old industrial district of Wedding in north west Berlin. It’s a rather poor, run down bit of town, which means, of course, that its earmarked to be the next up and coming place to be. I’ve always liked it mainly because it has so many fabulous big old factories, breweries, warehouses and power stations and I love wandering round the place and photographing the weird and wonderful shapes of the buildings.

Twilight over Wedding, acrylic on watercolour board, 12cms x 29cms, July 2016 

And while we’re in Berlin here’s a few recent snaps through the window of my favourite second hand bookshop, just up the road from where we live. It’s well nigh impossible to walk past this shop and not spend any money – luckily their prices are very good!

One of my favourite art shops in Berlin sells wooden panels on a box frame. They’re well made, great for painting on and surprisingly cheap. I bought some very small ones back last weekend – I only had hand luggage on the flight! – and I’ve been getting the paints out and sketching this afternoon.

Late Winter Dusk at the Allotments, acrylic on panel, 20cms x 30cms, July 2016

I love British allotments, their ramshackle chaos, timeless scruffiness and the wonderful veg that comes off them too of course. Whilst the rest of the country seems to have been taken over by bespoke, foraged, curated, boutique, pop-up artisan everything, with a price tag to match, allotments don’t seem to change, they’re still held together by string and plastic and I love them for it, even on a cold, bleak February afternoon such as in the painting 😉

Earlier in the year I’d taken photographs of some 3D models and landscapes I’d made and today I got the first test pigment prints back which I’d had done in A3 on thick cotton paper. A bit nerve-wracking as I was worried that the transformation I was seeing on my screen that had occurred in the photographs would somehow ‘untransform’ when I printed the images larger onto paper. But they’ve worked a treat; the colour is rich and painterly and the transformation is, if anything, enhanced. The prints will be produced in signed, limited editions of 25 each. The paper is really lovely and the images have exactly the soft, matte quality I was looking for. So a big thank you to Jan for helping me out with all things photographical and to Vasco in Berlin for printing them so well. 

As well as being very happy with the images I can also see the huge potential in this approach and lots of new ideas are germinating for things I can get stuck into after the exhibitor in early September. 

Pouring myself a large gin and tonic with relief! 

Moonrise over The Grange, acrylic and collage, 30cms X 30 cms, 2016

The weather has been stunning this week, but it does make it harder to knuckle down at the art table and get some work done. I managed to get this little painting finished though, made with some collaged elements but with a lot more direct painting too.

It’s been so hot at night this last week I’ve not been able to sleep very well. Luckily high tide has coincided with a bright full moon in the evening and it’s been absolutely  bloody  lovely swimming in the night-time sea at midnight under a summer starlit sky with moonlight reflecting off the water – perfect way to cool off!