My early solo exhibitions in London were mainly of flowers before my later exhibitions of varied and architectural subjects.

This is a recent flower painting using the cobalt blue of the mug to flatter the early summer delicacy of the flowers. Some of these were painted in pale permanent rose and the others with gentle shadow around the white paper to create the shape of the flowers. The view through the window is just showing in muted colouring to give the feeling of distance. The perspective of the curve of the lace mat had to be considered carefully with greater detail shown in the foreground.

The nave of the Abbey was first drawn freehand in pencil, without any hard lines had a ruler been used. The colour was chosen to convey the coolness of the interior of the Abbey. I slightly toned the watercolour paper and used a limited palette or ultramarine, yellow ochre, light red and mixed in touches of paynes grey in the shadow areas. The seating was slightly waxed so as not to distract from the grandness of the nave.

When painting I always consider the needs of each subject to convey the appropriate atmosphere.

The child watering the flowers required a happy sunny approach with a warmth in the colouring. Although no sky is shown the feeling is of a bright day. This I emphasized with the glow of the yellow shirt, using pale cadmium yellow. This same yellow was used together with a gentle solution of paynes grey to make the grass areas which had varying strengths of these mixes according the light and shade. I never use a green from a tube. Mixing your own greens give a more realistic feel. I sued a pale mixture of windsor violet for the flowers shown up by shadow from the leaves. The cast shadow from the child on the ground gives an extra dimension to the painting.

This needed great thought in order to convey the darkness of the chine against the lightness of the foreground as both had to related to each other. This was mainly achieved by integrating the colours in varying strengths. The bare areas of the cliffs and the foreground sand both have a base of yellow ochre but with differing shadow tones. For the trees I worked the darker areas into the lighter parts to create depth in the trees. The only use of white was within the dappled trunks of the tall, nearer trees.