This is my first of many Gloucester paintings, we will be having a Year of the Boat exhibition in the Waterways Museum in May 2013 and shall be doing more work in Gloucester in the build up to that, but I wanted to get started whilst the boat was in the area.
The final results after the second , very rainy day of painting
Our stay in Market Drayton coincided with Millard and Lancaster's Summer Show in Shrewsbury and a commute into town was relatively easy from here. I have had great success working with this fabulous gallery earlier in the year and was glad to be able to set up on the streets of Shrewsbury and raise awareness of this group show. You can see the solo show I had at Millard and Lancaster in February 2012 here
I had set up in the town centre in the run up to the solo show and generated a great deal of interest with potential customers and local press working on location. The general public are not used to seeing this manner of work and respond really positively. I painted the Old Market Hall and the iconic Railway Station
I chose this composition for Oil Painting 26 because I was interested in the swing of the street wrapping around the 2 churches. One passer by described the road in my painting as a helter skelter. I felt I hadn't yet conveyed the intriguing geography of Shrewsbury and its formation across quite steep slopes and wanted to illustrate varying heights of interesting architecture within this piece.
A snap of the foundation started one a sunny first day, compare with final result
After a good first day, a went back to add a few touches and the the scene had been transformed by rain. This year's weather has been difficult so far with the wettest June on record. I wasn't going to be deterred and set up hoping the rain would let off, it didn't, and the result was a wet scene with unusual reflections off the cobbles and roads. I have painted a few rainy scenes in the past, the flotilla one of the most memorable, and they often release some unusual colours and different treatment of the landscape.
This piece was purchased by a law firm in Shrewsbury who are based round the corner and saw the painting coming together.
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