Holiday to Argentina Inspires Quick Watercolour and Ink Vineyard Painting!

On the way up to Edinburgh for the weekend, looking out of the rain splattered window with a pencil in my hand, my thoughts drifted back to Mendoza, Argentina where my body had been two weeks ago... I started thinking of Mendoza's beloved sun-drenched vineyards with a backdrop of the sheer Andes, all framed by a bright blue sky. Ahh, the desert, the sun and the wine...

After we had got past Newcastle I had already completed this drawing and I felt a little better for it. Even if I wasn't going back in a hurry, I had something else to look at other than the rain pouring down in the Pennines (beautiful as the Northern English countryside is, seeing it spattered with rain so soon after a trip to Mendoza would have anyone's spirits a little low!)

'Bodegas de Mendoza' 8 x 10" Watercolour & Ink

This painting is for sale but please contact me or leave a comment if you are interested in buying it. Prints are also available. 

Painting a Dream: An Artwork Comission for a Religious Article

Since recently starting this 'Capture a Dream' blog, I was asked by a close friend to paint his dream, for an article in 'The Friend' - A spritual Quaker magazine. He had no idea that I was starting this blog or what I was calling it...

As well as 'a strange coincidence' it also seems that this painting is meant to be. I have always been fascinated by dreams - my undergraduate Psychology dissertation was about dream themes and what causes them, and I absolutely love painting, so why not combine them? Well this really does...

My friend has recently been dealt some bad cards in life, and had a very mystic recurring dream (below). He writes for the spiritual Quaker magazine 'The Friend' sometimes and asked me to paint his dream to go with one of his articles.

A figure in the right foreground struggling on hands and knees over a grassy area towards a cast iron lattice work footbridge extending from a bank running lower right to mid-upper left, over what may be a river. The bridge disappears at its apex into what may be greyish fog or mist, swirling...