Northumbrian Castles
Alnwick Castle is a Northumbrian Castles Print. It came from 2003 when I was commissioned to paint over a dozen Northumbrian Castles in watercolour. It was for a leading North East company to grace the walls of their boardrooms and Alnwick Castle was one of them.
The Northumbrian town of Alnwick boasts a magnificent castle as well as stunning gardens. I’ve had the privilege of painting both.
I had already decided that I would spread the paintings out over the course of a whole year. This was to capture all of the seasons. I worked out when the sun was most likely to be catching the ancient architecture. The last light of a summer evening was going to best for this particular scene.
Fabriano Paper
It was painted on an expensive Fabriano hand made watercolour paper, heavily textured. This was ideal for rendering both the stone and the foreground grasses. It also allowed me to make quite large, free brush strokes to indicate the low lying clouds reflected in the slow moving River Aln. The painting that was commissioned worked well for the client. I was so pleased with the result that I decided to do a slightly different interpretation of the same view . This was later reproduced as a limited edition print. The original watercolour can be seen at my Studio & Gallery in Ponteland.