Limehouse Reach - Framed Original Watercolour - 65 x 85cm
The Thames has always held a fascination for me. It is inextricably linked with London’s very existence and its history. Nowhere is that link between the river and the past felt more strongly than down on the shoreline and, in particular, where the river flows east of Tower Bridge and round the Isle of Dogs.
I wanted to capture that feeling of history, of Dickensian London and otherworldliness that you experience when you walk onto the shore having stepped down the narrow stairs of Wapping and Limehouse.
In this picture I have incorporated some of the buildings that hang over the Thames and evoke feelings of adventure, travel, the early days of international commerce, piracy and, in the distance, the juxtaposition of the modern world shown by the towers of Canary Wharf.
I have painted this in multiple layers of watercolour washes which give the historic building a ghostly, dreamlike quality and are representative of this world which is heavily influenced by water.
The painting is on 300gm Arches Aquarelle watercolour paper. The painitng is framed in a simple white frame and single mount.