Category: Painting of Wales

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The Long Way Home Got A Whole Lot Shorter

Delighted to say I have just SOLD this oil painting “The Long Way Home” via Artfinder – now on it’s way to Ontario, Canada!

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This people portrait is intentionally quite poignant as it features an elderly man who seems to be carrying some of his belongings in a plastic shopping bag. It is not clear if he is unkempt in his crumpled rain coat because he i s homeless or has gone beyond caring too much about his appearance. Either way, he looks sad and almost life-beaten.

I wanted to contrast his sad, beaten, forlorn facial expression, and drooped shoulders and shuffling gait with the excitement of others striding off into the distance, either shoppers hurriedly returning home after a successful day’s shopping or employees from these shops doing the same after a hard day’s work.

There is also a frission or juxtaposition between the elderly man’s crumpled slightly smudged coat and dishevelled appearance and the gleaming reflection-clean floor of the shopping mall and the tidy, orderly professional look of the shops.

The elderly man looks like he doesn’t fit in here or even maybe he has no where to go, unlike the others, where he can fit in. It is as if society has locked him out of what others have and perhaps even take for granted.
He seems lonely, and forlorn on his way to wherever he is going, to wherever he calls home?

 

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Long Way Home (SOLD)
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The Long Way home

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This people portrait is intentionally quite poignant as it features an elderly man who seems to be carrying some of his belongings in a plastic shopping bag. It is not clear if he is unkempt in his crumpled rain coat because he is homeless or has gone beyond caring too much about his appearance.Either way, he looks sad and almost life-beaten.

I wanted to contrast his sad, beaten, forlorn facial expression, and drooped shoulders and shuffling gait with the excitement of others striding off into the distance, either shoppers hurriedly returning home after a successful day’s shopping or employees from these shops doing the same after a hard day’s work. There is also a frission or juxtaposition between the elderly man’s crumpled slightly smudged coat and dishevelled appearance and the gleaming reflection-clean floor of the shopping mall and the tidy, orderly professional look of the shops.

The elderly man looks like he doesn’t fit in here or even maybe he has no where to go, unlike the others, where he can fit in. It is as if society has locked him out of what others have and perhaps even take for granted.
He seems lonely, and forlorn on his way to wherever he is going, to wherever he calls home?

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Buy Direct From My Art Gallery

Delighted to say I have just SOLD “Ilston Brook” directly via my Art Gallery, the “Back Lane Gallery” here in Brynmill Swansea (the lane is the opposite the Rhyddings Pub.)

This oil painting was SOLD to a lovely art collector who visited from Cardiff and had a private viewing before buying this lovely oil painting! I hope to sell more paintings directly via my The Back Lane Gallery in the coming months and years.

“A “refractionist” interpretive oil painting of a brook running through a wood near Ilston in the Gower Peninsula. The winter light combines with the grey haze of barren branched trees to create subtle, almost misty, pinks and purples, softened by the reflective silvery water.”

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Buy large prints here 

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“Cric in the Snow” is the most popular print on Artfinder.com

Delighted to say I have just SOLD this my last Giclee print to be sold via Artfinder
“Cric in the Snow”, my most popular Giclee print of all time!

“I love painting snow, whether brillant midday sun, blue-tinged, snow or pinky sunset snow. I love how blues and pinks hover above the snowy white. I love the snow’s power to transform, to turn a plain town into a lovely town, and a lovely town in something quite majestic.

You can still buy this as a print from my shop on Artmajeur.com here 

Cric in the Snow


In “Crick in the Snow, the lovely village of Crickhowell is transformed into a picture-postcard beauty by the snow and the dramatic background of the snow glistering hills. I live by the sea where the salty sea erodes most heavy snow drifts. Thus I have to travel inland to the Welsh Valleys and beyond to find my snow laden landscapes.
In this painting I love the intricacy of the hedge rows climbing up the hills, the lacy threads of winter hedges, the patterns and the line and shapes. It has a “brueghelian” Christmas feel. All that is missing is the sleighing children, and swirling skates. I love the warm colours of the houses in the foreground contrasting with the cold blues in the distance countryside. The habitable back-lit with the inhabitable.


This heightens the feeling of Christmas, all wrapped up in each other’s shops and homes, and lives; reassuringly, comfortably, necessarily away from the icy outside, the outer reaches, around this human fire of company. This is a painting of a winter community as well as winter community more generally.”

 

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Uplands from Swansea Beach

New oil painting – “Uplands from Swansea Beach” – 60 x 50 cm – £295

 

uplands from swansea beach

“The title of this painting has a double meaning as Uplands also refers to the area of Swansea in the background of this painting as well as being upland from the beach, up the snaking road from Bryn y Mor. I loved painting the variety of colours in this painting, all the sudden spring colours of April. The lime and blue greens, purples and burgundies of newly sprouting leaves on various types of trees, the light pinks and oranges of fragile, floating cherry blossoms. Swansea is a leafy city and trees sprawl across the many sea facing hills of Swansea. I tried to contrast this light, fragile, often transient colouring with the that of the more concentrated, weighty, more permanent huddled terracotta houses and in turn with the sandy changeability of the sandy beach and wispy blue and white of the sea. “

Unmounted prints of this painting are available here

 

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Swansea From Mumbles painting

Swansea from Mumbles

This is a new “naive” style oil painting “Swansea from Mumbles” 80 x 60cm £435 –
This is a rarely seen view of Swansea town centre and surrounds as seen through a telescopic lens from the beach at Mumbles – I loved this viewed when I first saw it, especially as one can see The Black Mountain (in the Brecon Beacons National Park) in the distant background.

This painting shows me why I love Swansea and South Wales. With all the huddled up houses hanging onto hills and valleys and sliding down to the sand of Swansea Bay. It is like the Valleys of South Wales are transplanted to the seaside. As a result this view almost has a slight incongruity to it.


It is as if, in a child like manner, two of my favourite aspects of Wales have been sandwiched together, the glorious coastline and the beautifully sculpted valleys in one view. Best of both worlds. For me this makes Swansea the heart of and gateway to South West and West Wales. A transition physically and geologically from the Valleys to the breathtaking coastline that lies around the corner of Mumbles and all the way up West Wales to the jutting rugged glory of the North Wales coastline. I love this part of the world. It is so beautiful and inspiring.

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Swansea from Mumbles

Limited edition mounted prints are available here 

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Transforming an Art Studio into an Art Gallery

Transforming an art studio into an art gallery – I have recently put some curtains for privacy and a few picture hanging rails onto the white walls of my art studio and it has really transformed it from a studio into somewhere where one can view art, serving as a private viewing space for artlovers to have a look at my paintings in “the flesh”.

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Having this viewing space is designed to help artlovers make that final decision about buying my artwork. I have sold dozens of pieces of artwork this way and really enjoy meeting artlovers who like my artwork.

It also helps some artlovers to meet me and to get to know who they will be buying art from. It all adds to the enriching experience of buying art.

Artlovers also often like to hear about the inspiration behind certain paintings and this brings the artwork to life.

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Although my paintings are professionally photographed some artlovers simply like to see the paintings in front of their very eyes.
Also artlovers can say, in advance, what paintings, in particular, they would like “hung” or displayed for them to have a closer look at and they will be hung on the white walls ready for them to view.

They can do this in the afternoon or the evening as the tracking lights enable viewing in the evening too.

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