Chimneys in snow

This painting has been sold

Acrylic on wood panel 8" x 8"

This is possibly one of the most complex paintings I have attempted so far. It had so much detail in it. I tried to ignore that and go for the big shapes. Also I limited my palette to cerulean, paynes grey, ultramarine, yellow ochre, raw umber and mars violet deep. That sounds like quite a lot of colours but some were used very sparingly. The scene is so typical of English northern hill towns. You can clearly see the row upon row of little terraced houses each with their own chimney. Not much smoke comes from them these days though as most of them have central heating fitted!

Rassbottom Brow

This painting has been sold

Oil on wood panel 8" x 8"

This is a little passageway just at the side of our main street. I used to walk down this cobbled brow to the railway station at the bottom to catch the train to work every day. I have seen it in all weathers and often thought I would paint it so here's the first. It's a chilly, damp winter day, the afternoon light beginning to fade. Hopefully I'll get another pic in the summer when the trees on the left are in full foliage!

Sheep in snow (II)

This painting has been sold

Acrylic on wood panel 8" x 8"

So curious these sheep! And a lovely colour against the snow.

Lock gates

This painting has been sold



Oil on wood panel 8" x 8"

Looking back

This painting has been sold

Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

Tuesday (re-work)

This painting has been sold


Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

Tuesdays are particularly quiet in Stalybridge. The custom always was in this area that the shops closed on Tuesdays and some of them still keep to that. The bulding on the right was a factory, now converted into apartments. It still feels like a mill to me thank goodness but maybe that's good design on the architect's part.
It's a typical dank and foggy December day with a lone motor cyclist making his way through the small town. The brightest thing in the picture is the back light of his bike.

Snow on Padfield Main Road

Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8" Please contact me if you are interested in purchasing this painting

Woodhead Road (II)

Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

The little trickle of icy water running down the road towards me made this scene a bit special I thought.

The canal in fog

This painting has been sold


Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

The canal systems around here were built not for pleasure cruises but for industry, mainly to carry the goods the factories were producing down to Liverpool docks via the Manchester Ship Canal. When they got to Liverpool they were transported all over the world. The mills of Lancashire produced enough cotton by breakfast time to satisfy local consumption. The rest of the day was pure profit.

Sheep in snow

This painting has been sold

Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

Raining again

This painting has been sold by the People's Gallery, Stalybridge


Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

Everybody likes car headlights in a painting and it's difficult to resist them when they reflect on a rainy road.

Woodhead Road (I)

Oil on plywood panel 8" x 8"

I should have really called this "What colour is fog?" It's the kind of extremely intelligent question five year olds ask. If I knew the answer I'd probably be at the end of my journey and bye, bye, blog.

November

This painting has been sold

Oil on plywood panel 8" x 7.5"

It doesn't take much for the town to assume the identity it had a hundred years ago, a small, industrial mill town, a town made for work and for workers. Houses here have very small back gardens or back yards because mill workers were not expected to be concerned with growing things. They spent their days in the grind of industry, the mill chimneys calling them to service each day. My family were part of that body of workers, I'm proud to say.

Ray Mill in fog

This painting has been sold

Oil on plywood 8" x 8"

I was flicking through some old art magazines the other day and found an article on that marvellous living English artist, Ken Howard. Apparently when Ken was at art school he considered his weakest area to be that of colour. One of his tutors at the time, Ruskin Spear, contemplating one of Ken's efforts said "You'd better get yourself a tube of raw umber, 'Oward". I like that story and its just like Ken to be amused by it. By the way a small effort of Ken's now would set you back about £15,000 on average.
So, with that in mind (only joking) I have gone full circle with this painting to the colours I started using 3 years ago - Indian red; Paynes grey; Raw umber - and very enjoyable it was too. Love that fog! We had two days of it.
Sorry about the white-ish spots in the sky. It's just camera glare. Not on the real painting.