Two exhibitions, and a return to Brushes with Watercolour

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a post for Brushes with Watercolour, but I’ve got a rather good reason to make a return.

I have work in two exhibitions opening next week, including the Royal Society of Marine Artists in London and one much closer to home in Worthing – so I thought it was about time I came back and said hello.

The Royal Society of Marine Artists

The first exhibition is the Royal Society of Marine Artists, which opens on Wednesday 16 September and runs until Saturday 26 September at the Mall Galleries in London.

I’m particularly thrilled to have been selected for this exhibition for the first time. The standard is incredibly high, and although I’m a watercolour painter, the exhibition includes work in a range of different media, so it was especially rewarding to have my painting selected.

The painting that has been chosen is Resting Fleet, Hastings, an A4 framed watercolour that I painted after visiting Hastings earlier this year.

The weather wasn’t particularly kind to us while we were there. I usually enjoy painting in bright sunshine, so I didn’t get much of that on this particular visit. But the less-than-perfect weather did produce some great skies, and it was the combination of those skies and the beach that really caught my attention.

It’s a good example of how a painting can sometimes come from something quite different from what you initially expect. I may have been hoping for sunshine, but the dramatic skies created a much more interesting subject, and Resting Fleet, Hastings was the result.

You can see the full exhibition on line now via the Mall Galleries website.

A little closer to home

My second exhibition is a little closer to home, at Chintz and Wood in Worthing, as part of the Worthing Art Trail.

I’ll be showing around 15–20 small paintings there, so there should be quite a different feel to this exhibition from the Royal Society show, where I’ll have just the one painting.

Chintz and Wood is a lovely shop specialising in handmade homewares. It’s owned by Wendy March, who I first met over 40 years ago when I first moved to Brighton back in 1985. I’ll be exhibiting alongside Wendy’s naturally dyed fabrics and textiles, her partner Jubal Pravette, a wonderful wood turner, and the ceramics of ‘the Coppers Potter’.

It makes for a really interesting mix of work, and I think it will be a lovely place to see the paintings. Here’s a brief selection:

The exhibition is open on Thursday 17, Friday 18 and Saturday 19 September, and again the following week on Thursday 24, Friday 25 and Saturday 26 September, from 11am to 5pm.

I’ll also be there in person on Saturday 19 September for a Meet the Artist event. I’ll be painting in my sketchbook while I’m there, and I’m really looking forward to meeting visitors and talking about my work — and, of course, answering any questions about watercolour painting.

And, after a rather long break, I’m back

The two exhibitions are also giving me the opportunity to return to something else that I’ve missed: writing this blog.

My last post was back in December 2024, after I’d been posting almost every week for the previous eight years. Unfortunately, my circumstances at that time meant that I couldn’t maintain the level of painting I would have liked to, or keep up the level of blogging that I’d managed up to that point.

I’m pleased to say that things have changed since then. I’ve been painting much more again, and it feels like the right time to start sharing some of that journey here once more.

I’m not sure I’ll be returning to weekly posts. Eight years of writing almost every week was quite a commitment! Instead, I’m thinking that a monthly post might be a more sustainable way of doing things — giving me the opportunity to pick out some of the most interesting things from the previous month and share them with you.

There should be plenty to talk about. As well as the paintings and exhibitions, I’m looking forward to sharing some of the places that inspire me, experiments and discoveries in the studio, and perhaps a few of the successes and failures that inevitably come with trying to get better at watercolour.

And if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to write about, I’d be delighted to hear from you. If you’ve been reading Brushes with Watercolour for years, or perhaps you’ve only just discovered it, please do leave a comment and let me know what you’d like to see.

It’s been a long time.

It’s good to be back.