SELF PORTRAIT

Pastel, 30x15cm.

Portraits are like handwriting, adding to the information, imparting a sense of immediacy, revealing more than a mechanical record. I don't know if it is what I'm best at but it is what I most enjoy doing.

I started taking commissions some time ago - brave move but one I have enjoyed. In fact I tend to do more work than people expect - several fairly finished pieces is not unusual driven by my urge to experiment. To date I've had no rejects but I expect I wouldn't charge if the client was not happy with the result.

TRUST

This is one of series of paintings that I produced for an exhibition at Up Front Gallery near Penrith to reflect on the Appleby horse fair - though I chose not to exhibit this particular piece.

I had never attempted to paint horses before nor to infiltrate, sketch and photograph some pretty rugged characters in the process. The experience was challenging but enjoyable and I saw a society that is steeped in tradition and full of colour, much of it decidedly non PC.

CATHY

I have now painted several performers and find that they are so absorbed in what they are doing that they appear natural making good subjects for portraits. I particularly like cellos and my friend Cathy plays it so well and looks good at it.

I struggled to the top of the fell behind my house to what I believe is called the High Road and where tinkers and the galloway teams of ponies travelled a couple of centuries ago - at a time when this area of the North Pennines was alive with industry driven by lead mining. It is now pretty near to being a wilderness and this painting is how I felt about it when I came back down - it's surprisingly flat, windswept and with wide sweeping fells rising and falling through 360 degrees.

LEVENS HALL TOPIARY 3

SEE LEVENS HALL TOPIARY 1

£300

LEVENS HALL TOPIARY 2

LEVENS HALL TOPIARY 2

£300

LEVENS HALL TOPIARY 1

LEVENS HALL TOPIARY 1

This is a magical place, especially the ancient garden and most especially the yew tree topiary which has been shaped since Elizabethan times by generations of gardeners. A living sculpture with enchanting elegant shapes, dark nooks, rich yew tree greens and shadows of ghosts extending back to Elizabethan times.

I have made three in this series and want to continue to do more.

JOSEPH'S BARN

Named after our neighbour this barn was used as a shelter for Galloway cattle and their feed. It is typical of many such sturdy small stone buildings that you can see throughout upland farms and which have stood firm against weather and rough use. They have mellowed and melted into the landscape and have become a record of a way of life that has not yet, quite, become history.

I enjoy them for their colours, their age, their hardy nobility and their ghosts.

LIMOUSIN IN WAITING

Upland cattle are kept in sheds or barns during the cold weather - maybe as much as seven months of the year. This Limousin, at least a ton him, is undoubtedly raring to get out. When they eventually get into the pastures with their harem they are like children let out of school at the end of term bellowing and racing around until the important business of breeding takes over.

ABANDONED GATE

Gates are important in farms and have been used and reused for generations suffering from decay, weather and human abuse that morphs them into a distorted but far more interesting version of their original shapes and blending them gradually into their environment.