This is one of my favourite paintings. I just love these two Bengals. They are so gorgeous and the position they’re curled up really makes me smile. It was such a joy to paint! I just wish I could have kept it.

Toffee and Thistle
14×11 acrylic on board
SOLD

This is a 14×11 inch acrylic painting on board. The background is made up of several layers of paint, the base colour was a warm pink with cooler lilacs over the top. As a result the background changes colour as the lighting changes, going from warm pinks to cool lilacs. Looks amazing but is very hard to photograph!

Here are a couple of close ups of the painting.

TigerTime – Save the Tiger

The Premier of China, Wen Jiabao has publicly stated that he is committed to saving the wild tiger. However, his government is allowing trade in tiger skins from tiger farms and skins taken before poaching was outlawed. This trade is acting as a smokescreen for skins taken by killing wild tigers. If China does not stop this trade, the wild tiger is doomed.

We are getting ever closer to 40,000 signatures for PLEASE sign the petition.

This is one of my favourite paintings! This lovely lad is Mirsku and as you can see, he’s quite a character. Very lively, full of fun and a great looking cat too. He lives in Finland with The King of Finland and his other feline subjects.

Spring Cleaning
10×8 inch acrylic on board
SOLD

I had lots of photos to choose from when I came to paint Mirsku but this pose, with him laying upside down casually washing a paw with his legs akimbo, really made me laugh. So I just couldn’t resist it. I wanted to capture that fun loving personality.

I used a board coated in Liquitex ceramic stucco to give it a rougher texture. You can see the texture in the detail photo above. He’s a grey and white cat but his fur is so full of colour, lilacs and blues with warm patches of naples yellow. A joy to paint!

Murray and Floss in the garden. Two good looking dogs, a Sheltie and  a little Japanese Spitz. Floss was quite a challenge to paint being all white.

Murray had lots of colour in his coat.

Walking home in the snow can be a wonderful thing. The world is quiet, blanketed in the crisp, fresh snow. The flakes fall softly all around you, everything is shrouded in grey but the lights ahead glow with the warmth and comfort of home.

Coming Home Through The Snow 
10×8 inch acrylic on board
£150

This winter scene is in St George’s Gardens in Central London.

This is a 10×8 inch oil painting on board.

A new card. This gorgeous Weimaraner dog brings his significant owner a Christmas gift. I wonder if it’s bones? Or maybe a rubber ball?

Get them here…

I have a new limited edition print available from the painting Stag In The Glen. Find it in the animals gallery.

I’ve been experimenting with some unusual surfaces. This is something pretty different for me as normally I like a very specific fine grained canvas for my animal portraits. But this year I’ve been taking the time to trying out some different techniques and this is one of them. A small 5×7 inch abstract on board coated with Liquitex ceramic stucco.

Ceramic stucco is an acrylic texture paste from Liquitex . It’s a fine-textured thick paste that dries a bit like Italian fresco. It makes an interesting surface, a stucco like finish that’s almost sugary in feel and fairly absorbent. Acrylic washes soak into the texture and are just delicious! Thicker paint can be used over the top too, so you have the best of both worlds. I love the feel of it and the way it reacts to the paint. I think this would be wonderful with pastels too.

Here’s a close up. hopefully you can see the surface in this one.

I think I’ll be using this again, I had so much fun with it.

Well the excitement of black cat awareness day is over and there were some amazing photos posted on cats protections facebook page! It really has inspired me to look for some more black cat models and do some more paintings.

Cats protection selected a gallery of their favourite photos, you can see them here. And I chose one of those 10 pictures to win the prize painting, Molly by Stephanie Stanesby.

Another City Park Sunshine landscape painting. Or perhaps that should be cityscape? This is Regents Park in spring. There’s a beautiful stand of cherry trees covered with blossoms near the boating lake on the south of the park.

It’s a wonderful place to sit and this year spring was early and hot. It was glorious! :-)

Regents Park Blossom
10×8 inch acrylic on board
£150

This painting is a 10×8 inch acrylic on board. Do email me if you’d like it.

A close up of the painting.

During Black Cat Awareness Day, on October the 27th, Cats Protection are asking  cat lovers to share photos of their black cats on their flickr site, facebook page or their flickr page or tweet mentioning @CatsProtection and #CPBlackCats . They will select some of their favourite photos and create a gallery of them.

The Prize

I am going to select a winner from the gallery and paint a 10×8 inch portrait of the winning cat! :-)

So if you fancy a portrait of your beautiful black puss upload your photo to http://www.facebook.com/catsprotection and tell people how wonderful our black cats are and maybe you could win a painting of your cat.

Why

Black Cat Awareness Day from Cats Protection aims to help around 1,300 unwanted black cats who are being overlooked by potential owners. Black cats make up one fifth of the total number of cats being looked after by Cats Protection, and each black cat is waiting a week longer to find a home compared to the average cat.

To adopt a black cat, please log on to www.cats.org.uk for details of your local Cats Protection branch or centre.

To see some of my paintings of black cats including my rescue boy Harry take a look at the Fascinating Felines Gallery.

If you stand at Kings Cross Station in Central London you know you’re in the heart of a large, busy city, with the roar of the traffic and the crowds. But walk five minutes up the road and down a flight of steps and you are in another world. The green, watery quiet world of Regents Canal.

Once on the towpath the noise of the city vanishes, the light is green and gold as it comes through countless leaves on the many trees that line the canals. The sounds are water lapping and birds singing. People walk, jog and cycle along the canals or sit and read the papers. From Kings Cross it’s a lovely walk up the canal to Camden Lock with its colourful markets. Stop here for a fresh juice or a cup of coffee. Then back onto the canal and a little further on you’re in Regent’s Park. And you never needed to see a road or hear the roar of traffic along the way.

Regents Canal In Summer
12×9 inches acrylic on board
£175

This painting is a 12×9 inch acrylic on board. It captures a summer Sunday on Regents Canal, people out walking enjoying the sunshine and the peace of the water. And there’s a dog too. :-)
Do email me if you’d like it.

Here’s close up. You can just see one of the canal boats coming out of the sunshine in the background.