Yorkshire

Oil On Canvas - 41x51 cm

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This looks quite continental with its line of slender trees, but it is a lavender farm near Castle Howard, North Yorkshire. It is interesting to compare this with my painting of French Lavender. In the latter the lavender is of uniform colour and planted in rows like potatoes, but here Yorkshire lavender has a range of colours from white and pink to varied shades of purple and they are planted in a design so giving the impression of a colourful tapestry.

Oil On Canvas - 56x66 cm

This is just a corner of a field in the East Riding, but it expresses the feeling of the height of summer in any such field in England. It is one of those hot, airless days when there is no breeze to stir the barley and the sun burns in a milky sky. Will the weather hold until the combine moves in?

Oil On Canvas - 46x56 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 40.5x51 cm

This is the same barn between Kilham and Rudston in an earlier state of collapse.

Oil On Canvas - 56x63.5 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 66x56 cm

This is the point where Woldgate reaches Kilham from Bridlington nine miles to the East. The barley field alongside the road attracted me with the ears of barley swaying softly in the breeze framed by the vertical lines of the hedge and buildings plus the dramatic black gable of the cottage.

Oil On Canvas - 66x76 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 56x66 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 56x66 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 50.5x63.5

An image of a derelict barn. Since I painted this it has completely collapsed.

Oil On Canvas - 61x56 cm

This in one of my favourite “Wolds Views” and one which is an inspiration whatever the season. In this case it is early Summer when the crops ripple with silvery colour in the wind. The little meadow in the foreground will soon be a mass of beautiful wild flowers such as vetches, trefoils and self-heal. Sledmere Monument on the horizon was erected by the Estate workers in honour of Sir Tatton Sykes who revolutionised farming methods in the 19 th. Century.

Oil On Canvas - 56x66 cm

This is where the Roman road, Woldgate, leaves Kilham. It starts from Bridlington and can be followed westwards by road or tracks for some miles until it disappears near Wetwang. The village sits in a shallow bowl and there are eye-catching views of the village as one descends one of several roads into the village. Kilham was the main town of the Wolds in the Middle Ages, but gradually, after the Inclosure Act in 1614, farm workers left the land to find a livelihood.

Oil On Canvas - 46x61 cm

There is nothing “spectacular” about this view, but it proves how one can always find so much to see in the simplest scene ------it may be the range of shades of colour, the mood of the weather or season, the angle of light, the variety of textures, or the kinds of plants or trees.

Oil On Canvas - 56x66 cm

The Wolds often surprise you….follow a path at the edge of a field , turn a corner and the view opens out into a typical, steep sided, flat bottomed valley.

Oil On Canvas - 36x51 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 56x66 cm

The decrepitude and slow decline of old barns and sheds always attract me as being more full of character than something smart and new. These sheds have been slowly falling apart over several years and I loved their gently fading unusual colour. The rusty corrugated rooves match the autumn shades in the foreground.

Oil On Canvas - 41x81 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 63.5x71 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 51x61 cm

This was a perfect summer’s day and an idyllic view of this Wolds village. As I finished my sketch I saw this dramatic bank of cloud rolling quickly in from the coast (An East Coast fret). I thought that the sunny fields of barley made such a contrast with the threatening bank of clouds advancing towards me. Rudston is famous for having the tallest single standing stone in Britain and for having the grave of Winifred Holtby, the author of South Riding in the churchyard.

Oil On Canvas - 30.5x40.5

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Oil On Canvas - 66x71 cm

I have tried to express the drama of this view. The church is perched on top of this isolated hill, the only hill to be seen between the Humber estuary and the Wolds and a stark contrast with the flatness of the surrounding plain. It is said that there was a castle here where Henry Vlll once stayed on one of his Progresses after visiting York.

Oil On Canvas - 61x66 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 66x76 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 61x56 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 66x92 cm

More attractive old barns! These are tucked away in a corner of Kilham and left to themselves to quietly disintegrate.

Oil On Canvas - 69x76 cm

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Oil On Canvas

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This is a good illustration of the way I often approach a subject. Rather than taking the obvious view, I like to fine a more oblique aspect. The most important focus of the village is the church, but you only catch a glimpse of it between an old barn and a cottage. These buildings themselves and the unkempt paddock also show my preference for the old and imperfect rather than the new and well kept.

Oil On Canvas - 41x51 cm

This painting is of one of the farms in Kilham. Just around the corner to the left is the subject for the inspiration of David Hockney’s paintings of “The Tunnel”, a tree-lined track at right-angles to the road and which is one of the many Woldgate pictures which he did around the village.

Oil On Canvas - 50x70 cm

Saltburn is on the East coast just south of Redcar. It was a bitterly cold and windy day with dramatic waves pounding the shore. Eventually the clouds overcame the feeble sun and snow flurries drove away even the hardiest surfers. I have tried to capture that moment when the last dying rays of sun lit the shore with a beautiful gentle luminescence.

Oil On Canvas - 66x71 cm

This a view in late summer looking over the gentle hills punctuated by the sudden characteristic steep-sided valleys cut into the landscape many thousands of years ago.

Oil On Canvas - 56x56 cm

I was Artist in Residence at Burton Agnes Hall several times and this is one of the garden paintings I did when there. I was usually there for a couple of weeks between May and September and there was always something fascinating to draw your eye such as an open gate. What is through there?

Oil On Canvas - 66x56 cm

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Oil On Canvas - 66x56 cm

Every turn of the path in this walled garden brings a new delight, but a view through a gate is always enticing. The visitor always wonders what may be discovered and is drawn through to explore the unknown. Within these walls there is a riot of shape and colour with flowers and vegetables both common and unusual living happily side by side.

Oil On Canvas - 71x63.5 cm

Another little corner glimpsed through an archway, bit this time with the soft shades of Spring. To illustrate how quickly things change, by the second week of my Residence, the clematis had covered the arch and the tulips were just about over. One of the Gatehouse towers can be seen in the background.

Oil On Canvas - 61x56 cm

There is always such a change from month to month. One minute it is tulips and clematis, then a mass of roses clambering over the arches and wonderful delphiniums and foxgloves which are followed by a variety of colourful cabbages and climbing beans combined with late summer plants and foliage.

Oil On Canvas - 51x41 cm

This is one of the paths in the “Jungle Garden” at Burton Agnes Hall. The slight haze gives an air of mystery and the question, “What is round that corner?”.

Oil On Canvas - 66x71 cm

The heat of the summer’s day is reflected in the riot of colour in the borders and parterres. The Hall’s Elizabethan Gatehouse is glimpsed over the wall of this award winning garden. The a mixture of familiar and exotic flowers and vegetables. Climbing beans and courgettes are growing happily amongst hollyhocks and canna lilies etc. Every month brings a change of scene.