The Thames at Teddington

Teddington Lock

This is a painting from a few months ago that I haven't shown you yet. It's the river Thames at Teddington Lock.

Here's a bit of historical interest for you - in May 1940 Teddington Lock was the assembly point for an enormous flotilla of small ships from the length of the River Thames to be used in the evacuation of Dunkirk. Hundreds of merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft and lifeboats were called into service to rescue the stranded British and French troops from the beach at Dunkirk. More than 300,000 were brought back across the channel in this curious collection of crafts. Churchill described it as a 'miracle of deliverance' in his famous "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech.

Back to the present day I'm able to enjoy some restful studio time this week, working on developing ideas from plein air studies to new studio pieces. It's getting very chilly and I'm keeping an eye out for snow... any snowfall and me and my paints will be out like a shot!

Advance notice that I'm having a large solo exhibition in Nottingham from January 8th to 13th 2014. I will be there every day from 10.00am to 3.30pm so if you think you might possibly be able to make it pop it in your diary now and I shall be very happy to see you there!

Rowing club at Putney

Rowing club at Putney

Things get hotter! The day after painting with the Royal Institute of Oil painters at Maidenhead I painted at Putney with the Wapping group - boy was it hot in the city! Thirty degrees celsius I found out later. There was actually a weather warning in place, we're not good at dealing with weather extremes in this country. Heat and cold both take us by surprise. We're fine with rain and drizzle though.
Anyway, of the four paintings spanning the two days this is by far my favourite one and it only took HALF AN HOUR to paint - how does that happen?!
In fact I confess that I almost didn't start it, thinking it was too ambitious a subject for the time frame but there you go! Surprised myself by managing to capture the essence of the scene, with probably no wasted strokes!

Rowing club at Putney - detail

This is the other painting from the day, the one I laboured over in the sweltering heat -

Towards Putney bridge

And this is a better look at the afternoon one from the day before - 

Very grand news!

Houses of Parliament at sunset
Claude Monet

Here's my new exciting news!!

I can finally tell you that I've been selected by the BBC as one of a small group of artists who are going to be filmed on the 3rd June standing on the Millennium bridge over the river Thames painting the Queen's diamond jubilee pageant as the boats sail beneath us!

There will be one thousand boats sailing in the flotilla with the Queen and other members of the Royal family on the Royal barge. It is going to be the largest collection of historic vessels ever assembled on the Thames. The lead vessel is a floating belfry with eight church bells on board ringing! One of the boats taking part, the Amazon, also took part in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, in 1897. Two million people are expected to gather in London to watch the procession, and I am so, so excited that I will be there to paint the events as they unfold!

It's really happening and it's happening next weekend!

Click here if you'd like to see more information about the Royal Pageant :-)