Friday 8th January

It’s been an interesting start to the New Year!

Over Christmas I managed to frame 15 small watercolours for the “Wild Northumberland “ Exhibition at Gallery 45, in February.  I had also ordered some much larger frames for some larger watercolours but, unfortunately,  3 of them were damaged in transit and I had to have 3 replacement panes of glass sent. This is always a problem when ordering frames online. The Galleries don’t want acrylic glass but glass in the post can get  smashed.  

Beckstones Gallery have asked if I can do 2 large paintings for a customer who had bought 2 of my large paintings in November.  He wants them on 80cmx80cm canvas. Unfortunately I had just ordered 4 x 100cmx80cm and 4x 100x100cm canvases for the New Year. I will have to order the 80cmx80cm ones as well. 

My back to work week was to start on Monday but the weather had other ideas. On Saturday it snowed then froze. We were cut off from everywhere by ice and snow.  Dylan had to abandon his car 200 metres from home on his trip back from Manchester, as he couldn’t get up the last hill to our house. On Sunday we went to try and retrieve it and I fell on ice bruising my hip and thigh and spraining my wrist. My mount-cutting Monday had to be shelved.  

We didn’t manage to get out shopping on Saturday so started raiding the freezer. The bad weather is set to continue here for the next few days so it could be ”bread and catchit“ by Wednesday!

We finally got out of the village to shop on Tuesday.  My sprained wrist has been a problem but later in the week I managed to cut the mounts and frame 5 of the larger watercolours.

Despite my injured wrist I managed to string and wrap the other paintings I'm taking to Gallery 45. I thought I might stock them up a bit and pictures are better off there than sitting around here. 

On Thursday my glass panes arrived. How they got here in one piece I have no idea. The package they were delivered in was battered. They were securely bubble wrapped between 2 boards inside, which saved them. I set about removing the shattered glass from the 3 frames, cleaning them and framing the remaining 3 large watercolours.  For safety (as the glass had splintered) I wore my cut proof kitchen gloves which worked perfectly. 

I also sorted and tidied up the studio a bit. It had become a bit of a dumping ground over the holidays. I needed to clear some space to paint.

Completely out of the blue, I received an email from Buckinghams, asking if I could produce a new collection of "Spring" woodland paintings to be released in their "Spring Launch" at Buckinghams HQ in March. I agreed and they are sending me the boards next week. With my Gallery 45 stuff all sorted and nothing else pressing it is a opportune request and I will look forward to doing a collection of woodland paintings until I get bored doing them. 

Hopefully my wrist improves over the weekend. I've not done it any favours with mount cutting and framing being about the worst thing I could do with a sprained wrist but I'm itching to get painting again. 

Hopefully I can get back to work next week.

On a completely different level...I thought I'd just list the top 10 paintings sold at auction in 2025. Some of which I've mentioned in my blogs.

Top 10 Paintings Sold in 2025

RankPainting & ArtistSale Price (USD) Approx. Price (GBP)

1 Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer — Gustav Klimt $236.4 million~£179.7 million

2 Blumenwiese (Blooming Meadow) — Gustav Klimt $86 million~£65 million

3 Waldabhang bei Unterach am Attersee — Gustav Klimt $68.3 million~£52 million

4 Romans parisiens (Les Livres jaunes) — Vincent van Gogh $62.7 million~£48 million

5 No. 31 (Yellow Stripe) — Mark Rothko$62.2 million~£47 million

6 El sueño (La cama) / The Dream (The Bed) — Frida Kahlo $54.7 million~£41.5 million

7 (Often reported low-profile but in 2025 top art sales) Francis Bacon (example lead sale ~$16m) $16 million~£12.2 million

8 Canaletto painting (e.g., The Return of the Bucintoro) $43.8 million~£33.3 million

9 (Ranked in mid-top range) Major Modern/Contemporary work (e.g., Mondrian) $47.6 million~£36.2 million

10 (Various high mid-tier works across auctions) (e.g., other Modern/Impressionist pieces)~$40 million+