Watercolours, Portland Maine 1986-8

I returned to Portland, Maine, USA and rented a 1000sq ft studio over an antiques warehouse on India St. I worked full time as an engineer and drew again at open evening life classes at USM and PSA. I also drew many of my friends in my studio and occasionally hired professional models there. After a family holiday in Wales, I worked up some landscape sketches I had done there into paintings. I began painting in acrylics, which worked OK for the landscapes, but I was never very happy with the results for life paintings. In spite of this, I continued to try and make acrylic life paintings work, though I still mostly chose watercolour, which I found more immediate and less laborious. Watercolours continued to provide me with the most immediate method of working from live models.