After the canals of France we spent a year sailing the inland waterways of Southern Ireland. The account of that journey is recorded in my book Voyage into Ireland. Then followed a year sketching street scenes in the Norfolk town of Kings Lynn. The paintings and sketches from that period became the subject of my first one man show, Lynn and Locality.
On the morning of the opening of the exhibition my wife and I had to attend a wedding. The friend we left in charge asked what he should do if anything sells. We told him in that unlikely event to write down the contact information of the potential buyer. When we returned at mid-day, almost all of the paintings had sold, one of which resulted in my first royal patronage.
The painting below is typical of my style of work in those early days.
In a roundabout way it was the Kings Lynn exhibition that brought me to the Caribbean. The sculptor Enzo Plazzotta was also exhibiting at the festival and his sculpture Jamaican Girl so infatuated me that I eventually followed the temptress to the land of her birth. This in turn led me to begin my paintings and sculptures in the series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. And here I am, fifty years later on the island of Dominica, still adding sculptures and paintings to the series.
Below is a sketch I made of Enzo Plazzotta's sculpture at the time of the exhibition.
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