Portrait collected from Trinity Wharf

 Alex's portrait collected from Trinity Wharf in Docklands. An interesting part of London unfamiliar to me, I bought an excellent guide to London's Hidden Walks at the train station coming in to town, and after collection I walked back to Tower Gateway via a number of historic and unspoilt pubs on the river.  
Thanks to Douglas McLeod and Lacewing for their excellent framing services

Portrait of Alex

The BP Portrait award judges liked this painting enough to choose it for the final 500 considered for the exhibition... unfortunately it wasn't selected for the final show.
 I titled it January, after the month in which it was painted and the wintry palette, I thought it spoke of our first year with our first child,  Bella.  I painted a number of portraits through the previous year, none of which were successful, and so this was my last chance with the deadline approaching, Though not perfect i thought it caught a mood, and a likeness. 

A couple of studies of the ugford clump

 Oil on board studies both from the south , taken from the same sketch