More good news came a couple of days ago. My painting "Hot Work" has been selected for showing in the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2018. I had a painting selected for the 2014 exhibition, a rejection the following year and left it two more years before entering again. So pleased, it means a lot to have my work recognised at this most prestigious of events. The painting is part of a fire series I'm doing at the moment, furnaces, steel mills, the Saddleworth Moor fire, riots and bonfires all feature.

Last week I visited a friend who owns a property in Southern France, near Beziers. We are planning to set up a series of residential painting workshops for summer 2019. His property  is ideal for this having a large old barn space with room for about 10 people to paint and draw Outside the town has infinite possibilities for people to find suitable scenes and is quiet enough for them not to be disturbed. Whilst on my recce, I did a bit of sketchbook work which you can see below.

Six of my paintings are in an exhibition called The Civil Times at The Troubadour Gallery, Old Brompton Road, London 8-29 July 2018. I used the opportunity to show some recent work based on fire and sold three during the pv, which is nice. Because the buyer wanted to take the paintings immediately, these had to be replaced so that no gaps were left.