It was the dream of living by the sea that drew Adrian and I to move to Portpatrick back in 2014.  Before we moved here I would occasionally try painting the sea, mostly without success as I didn’t have that much first hand experience of it.

In 2001, we had a week’s holiday on a boat sailing around the inner Hebridean islands and this watercolour is one of the first paintings where I felt I captured something that I see quite frequently these days – stormy weather approaching across the sea.

We often look out across the North Channel and comment that it’s raining in Ireland.  If there’s any washing on the line, we know we’ve got about 20 minutes to get it in before the rain reaches us.

A couple of years afer moving here, I joined forces with two other local artists and put some paintings into an exhibition called Land, Sea and Light, which allowed me to really explore the the subject of the sea in more depth.

Later that year I did a couple of small paintings of popular local scenes, the lighthouse in Portpatrick and a view of Ailsa Craig from Ballantrae Beach.

One of my most abstract paintings from that time is still one of my personal favourites called Uncharted.  It is loosly inspired by memories of a visit many years ago to Smoo Cave on the north coast of Scotland where you are ferried across a pool to explore the innermost reaches of the cave.

I hope you enjoyed this little retrospective of my sea inspired paintings.  Most of the originals have sold, but are available as open or limited edition prints and some have been made into greetings cards.