Urban Sketches, drawn mostly in Tuscany and Umbria over the last 8 years – many in my favourite towns. My home town of Pistoia, and the hills around it. Hilltop villages and larger walled cities. My hope is to avoid romanticising these rather iconic and naturally beautiful locations.

Over the years I have refined a technique or priming sketchbooks with gesso, and a loose and rapid ground of oil paint before sketching. Over this, and often fighting against it, I draw in pencil, on site.

The oil painting happens at a later time, pulling out of the background as loosely as I can, the sense and light and mood of these amazing places.