Above – Chancelot Mill, oil on 33×23 inch wood panel.

A change of scene from landscape in today’s painting of Chancelot Mill. Well, it’s urban landscape I suppose. The frustrating thing about photographing blues and greens is that my basic camera can’t pick up the subtleties – the colours don’t balance. I may have this photographed by someone with a better camera and colour recognition software (namely my partner Adam!) Anyway, I wanted to paint that infinite velvety sky and the way the building enhances it. I found that simplifying the buildings helped the composition and brought the sky out more.

Chancelot Mill is a flour mill in Leith. Its predecesor was Chancelot Roller Mill which (if you’re from Edinburgh and find this interesting) used to be near Gosford Place. I’ll be doing a series of three paintings of Leith’s industrial landscape over the next week.

I’m also excited about my new exhibition coming up in June, for which I’ll be painting a series inspired by the landscape of Ardnamurchan and the west coast of Scotland. The exhibition launches on the 12th June this year at the excellent Resipole Gallery. I’ll be showing as part of a two-artist exhibition with landscape artist Jim Wright. I’m hugely looking forward to a painting trip to Ardnamurchan at the start of May this year!