Mann Island, Liverpool

As part of a visit to Liverpool Biennial with our students on Wednesday, we walked down to the Tate at the Albert Dock, and it was really interesting to revisit the view I had painted last year from unfinished photographs of Mann Island - a new commercial development by architects Broadway Malyan. I was quite surprised, and rather pleased, at how similar the painting and photograph were. 

The reason I am so drawn to this view, is the complexity and layering of the city...dock, ferry, Victorian building, modern architecture at its most inscrutable (as an architect I really like it, but can appreciate it has had a mixed reaction from the general public) - and the stunning backdrop of Liverpool's Three Graces. I actually have quite an emotional response to this view and would really like to do some more paintings in this area. If our Urban Sketchers group gets off the ground, I'll definitely organise a Liverpool day-out!

Mann Island, Liverpool October 2012

Liverpool skyline, painted 2011

London skyline

This is a drawing from Greenwich Observatory looking out across the Naval College and River Thames, over towards Canary Wharf.  I was partcularly interested in the complicated juxtapostion of classical buildings in the foreground, with the modern city skyline beyond. The drawing is A3 sized and taken from from an assemblage of my photographs. I have had it professionally printed onto watercolour ready to paint.