Sultan Qaboos Susan and I were saddened to hear of the passing away of Sultan Qaboos bin Said on Friday the 10th January. He had led Oman with great wisdom for almost 50 years. When he took over from his father, it was a nation of virtually no infrastructure, schooling or hospitals. Now it is … Read more
Diana’s Point is named after Princess Diana of Wales who visited Jebel Akhdar with Prince Charles in November 1986. We first went to Diana’s Point on Jebel Akhdar in Oman back in November 2007. The previous year I had received a number of commissions for a client in Oman depicting scenes around the Al Hajar … Read more
On Tuesday evening I attended the Preview evening for Artists & Illustrators Magazine‘s “artist of the year 2014” exhibition. I was delighted to be chosen as one of 50 shortlisted artists out of over 3000 entries with my entry “Last Light, Ruwi”, particularly as it came in my 30th anniversary year. You can read … Read more
On Friday I received a phone call from Artists and Illustrators Magazine to say that I’d been shortlisted as one of 50 artists for their competition “Artist of the Year 2014” with my original watercolour “Last Light, Ruwi, Oman”. I was delighted with the news as there were over 3,000 entries. The winner will be … Read more
This studio watercolour of Ruwi in Oman is the result of spending many hours making sketchbook studies on location in Oman. I’ve often risen when it was still dark to make sure I was in the right spot to capture the early morning light, however on this occasion it was a case of being in … Read more
My Christmas Exhibition Preview weekend started 29th November. The exhibition continues until 24th December and is a collection of recent original watercolour paintings. Subjects include the Northumbrian coastline depicting famous landmarks like Dunstanburgh Castle. Paintings inspired by a trip to Amsterdam can also be seen, in particular this new limited edition print of Windmills seen … Read more
I was delighted to discover that my painting of “Jebel Akhdar, Oman” was recently selected by the Royal Watercolour Society for their Competition 2013 and even more thrilled that it won “The Artist’s Prize”. The Artist’s Magazine has asked me to be one of their featured artists later on in the year when I will … Read more
I had been asked to do some paintings of Omani doors as well as dhows so I spent a few hours wandering around getting reference and making sketchbook studies of these Arabian vessels. I’ve published a number of my paintings of Dhows as limited edition prints since then which have proved to be popular. Some of the sketchbook studies have also been published in my signed limited edition Sketchbook of Oman.
I did two quite different scenes, one of the Grand Mosque in Oman, the other of some Arabian Dhows at low tide in Sur, Oman.
Painting a sunrise on location like this Oman Watercolour is one of the hardest challenges as a watercolourist. The main problem is that the colours change so quickly, so by the time you have laid your first wash and waited for it to dry, the rising sun will have brought a complete change to the … Read more