The Lake District is one of my favourite places to visit and I have finally got round to painting it. These first paintings are some little colourful sketches on heavy duty art paper, about A4 size and you can buy them off the website, mounted but not framed. You can see the current Lake District Paintings for Sale Here
I have loved the Lake District ever since I was a young boy. I used to go and stay in this most beautiful old house, Broad How, in Patterdale with my parents who knew the family who owned it. It was always a big group staying from my mother’s school and walking the fells was top priority. Cup of tea in bed at 7am and a huge joint effort for breakfast and packed lunches with everyone out the door by 9am. It was a well run operation choosing the walks, checking the pubs for the end of the walk and getting as many wonderful peaks in during the trip as possible. I always remember the old cupboard at the top of the stairs with all the walking boots of every size neatly laid out with ice skates on top.
The house was a lovely old Victorian house right under the approach to High Street and with views out over Ullswater. It was usually Easter catching a bit of snow and ice and the fellsides were always this fabulous shade of earthy orange where the bracken had died off.
I later lived in the Yorkshire Dales and was able to visit the Lake District on many wonderful weekends staying at my favourite campsites around the area. I love all the Lakes but my favourite places have to be Patterdale and Glenridding with Helvelyn and of course High Street and Grasmere for the sheer beauty of the landscape.
I love to climb up to Helvelyn across Squirrel edge and then back across Striding edge and back to Glenridding for a relaxing beer and pub meal at the Travellers Rest. The paintings are a colourful sketch which keeps the style loose and free, a bit of an exploration for a future larger painting.
I don’t think there is an area on earth quite so beautiful, quite so majestic, so perfect for walking and so stunning as the Lakes. There is just so much beauty, so much history and so much variety in every walk. Its wonderful.
Take a look at the current Lake District Paintings for sale
I am better known for my ski paintings which is my other love in life, touring the majestic mountains in the Alps where I have skied since I was 3 in as many resorts as I can think of. I started my snowboard life in the Yorkshire Dales a little later on in life and so painting one of the few ski tows in the Lakes was a must.
Raise just off Helvellyn ski tow, a Covid Lockdown treat. I used to know this place as Sticks Pass when I was a regular visitor to Patterdale and Glenridding and its a great snow pocket just over the East side of the ridge leading up to Helvellyn.
This is only a really quick sketch and I will be having another go at it later on this week.
