ABOVE: My principal mural that I framed in trompe l'oeil stonework and Roman Centurian caryatids. It shows my view of the City of Bath's most adored Country House and park - Prior Park College, (Ralph Allen - 1740's with landscape designed by Capability Brown)
A few months ago, my long time chum June Henry and I were visiting some mutual friends - Deirdre Mc Sharry and Ian Smyth (seen with me below) in their / my home town of Bath. Deirdre is a former award winning magazine editor and journalist and Ian has been a lawyer of note in the film business.
Now they live in some splendour at the center of a Regency terrace on one of the 'bosco' covered hills of Bath. While downing yet another glass of prosecco, I suggested painting some of my visionary murals in Deirdre's studio - where I thought to create an evocation of the City of Bath's particular splendour .
ABOVE & BELOW
Another view of Deirdre's studio, showing my vision of two of Baths most important monuments - Lansdown terrace and at it's side the great tower built by William Beckford who in later life moved into the crescent.
One of the particular challenges of painting the great crescent on this wall, was that the wall itself is a gentle convex curve while the crescent is clearly a concave one. Ummm - exciting!
Of course in reality one can't actually see the two marvellous structures together, but with painting - anything is possible. The sheep that are seen grazing in front of the crescent are from the nearby Cotswold hills and have always been a part of Bath's particular charm - it's Palladian splendour being perfectly set off by the bosco covered hills where sheep do indeed safely graze amid these rather 'Elysian' fields