Richard Paul Art

The steel works at Port Talbot are not everyones idea of a grand landscape, but look again and you find a hidden beauty in the menacing edifices of heavy industry - the huge pipes, the steam and smoke. This original oil painting on board (20 inches x 16 inches) captures the atmosphere, but leaves behind the sulphurous, oily smell.

As seen from the slow ferry to the Isle Of Wight, this is Fawley oil refinery captured in oil on a 20inch x 16 inch board. I painted it as I liked all the little details of the chimneys and tanks and the patches of rust and gunk.

The mouth of the River Medina (Cowes, Isle of Wight) is surprisingly industrialised - but in a nice small business kind of way. If you take the slow car ferry from Southampton, this is the view you get as it comes into dock at Cowes. It caught my eye because of the jumble of interesting details such as the seaweed covered rails, the refuelling kiosk with its old pumps, the draped material for the doors, and the reflections on the windows - which are clearly not flat glass panels. I've painted this on a 16x12 inch board using oils and a lot of fiddling around with the detail.

This is the twin to my earlier picture of the Freightliner terminal at Southampton (UK) docks. This one is a bit more of a complex affair with lots of interesting machinery co-ordinating the transfer of freight containers to a waiting train. Its very easy to end up mesmerised watching it! Painted in oil on a 16x20 inch board

I find the docks fascinating, and nothing more so than the Freightliner terminal, where a pair of cranes travel up and down the rails shifting containers on and off awaiting trains. I watched for ages as they zipped around with large pulleys winding the wires in and out with a gentle almost melodial whirring. This oil painting of Southampton is 16 inches by 20 inches, oil on board. Original sold 2017

I saw this ship docked by the oil refinery in Southampton Water whilst passing on the ferry to the Isle of Wight. There was something about the pattern of shapes that I found interesting, so I took a snap of the central section. Back in the studio I thought about painting it, but decided it worked better in pencil as the straight lines and little details would be hard with a brush. So sometime later I finally got round to it and produced this sketch on A4 paper.

This come from my trip last year to the coast around Liverpool, Formby and Southport. On this particular day I took the famous ferry across the Mersey, and walked the shore up to New Brighton, where the river Mersey mixes with the sea. Towards the end of that walk I found this spot where the docks opposite lined up for a pleasing arrangement. I've now turned my original photo into an oil painting on board 16 inches x 12 inches - capturing the light of a sunny September day shortly to be encroached on by cloud and rain.

A while back I went on a trip to Cumbria, and for once turned my back to the beautiful Lake District. Instead, I explored the coast, from Barrow In Furness round to Silverdale in Lancashire. At Barrow, I found several boats stuck in the mud. The oldest was a wooden sailing vessel, but that was on the far side of a mud creek that couldn't be crossed. Closer to solid ground I found this rusting hulk. I was immediately drawn to the colours and patterns in the rust, and so decided to paint it in oils on board (16 inches wide, 20 inches high). Just behind this ship I came across a rowing boat half submerged in the mud - another tempting angle to paint. Beyond that, a lifeboat - the enclosed sort you get on oil rigs - looking a little weath...

Down in the pretty town of Christchurch (Dorset, UK), you walk along a promenade with ducks and swans on the river Avon on one side and the greenery of a park with a traditional bandstand on the other. At the end of the walk there is a little ferry that takes you across the river and a walk of a couple of miles out to Hengistbury Head (where I've painted the beach huts). And it is just along from the little wooden jetty where the ferry leaves you, that this dredger is parked - next to a bank of reeds. I was particularly taken by the shed mounted on it, and felt the urge to produce this picture. The details dictated pencil to me, but without colour its hard to see through the jumble of parts, hence I've drawn this in pencil with a w...

I was up in the Orkney isles, and taking advantage of the summer Sunday deal on the ferry, where it takes a different route around the outlying isles each Sunday as a social thing so islanders can meet up, but to the benefit of anyone wanting a cheap day out. This day it visited one of the closer islands, and then went right out to far flung North Ronaldsay. The start of the crossing was calm, but when a car boarded and got chained to the deck at the stop off I was thinking this looked a bit serious. But then we got into exposed waters and the ferry was tossed around, along with my stomach. Still I got to North Ronaldsay, and walked along the shore of one side, watching as its famous seaweed eating sheep scattered over the loose flat st...