I've lived here in Whitby for over three years now and whilst it was always my intention to use the surroundings as subjects for paintings it is only now that such pieces are emerging. I've recently been fascinated by the process of creating my own landscapes digitally and making paintings from those and I shall be continuing to do so. However that practise was born of living in an urban, relatively uninspiring East Midlands location.
Now I am ten minutes walk from the sea and five minutes drive from the North York Moors national park it is very different. The drama of these places, many that are familiar from boyhood, demands to be painted. I suppose many will see this, perhaps correctly as being 'back to basics' but I feel my ability to select, compose and render landscape has been much improved by all the time spent bringing life to bare digital creations. Now I have wildness and nature as source material again I feel I need to enhance it very little.
Much of these three years I have just been exploring, enjoying and absorbing the atmosphere - the inspiration phase of creativity. I felt I owed it to myself as fatherhood, advancing years and awareness of mortality have changed my priorities. I've served my time, diminished among the multitudes and conurbations. I'm recovering my former self, enobled and untroubled, alone in forests, on moors, cliffs and beaches, such places where solitude is the natural instinctive state.
Here then are four small oil paintings of Upgang Beach and the North Sea, just half a mile from our house. The subject is not original but I am so often delighted by standing bare-foot in the surf that I wanted to try and capture that utterly refreshing feeling that courses through my whole self as I gaze out at the pure horizon and forget everything.
All pieces are in oil on canvas board, 7x5" and are up for auction on eBay.