Flowers are a favorite subject of mine as they lend themselves to liberal composition and colour.

These are watercolours of London streets in the Piccadilly area that I painted some years ago. They were popular with tourists who wanted souvenirs to remind them of the sights they had seen.

And now for something completely different, (for me, anyway). This abstract painting was inspired by my sofa, which, frankly is not as colourful as depicted here. I aimed for a good colour balance as well as a semi-representational subject

I painted this 12"x14" pastel portrait of a girl way back in 1992. She lived in a cupboard hidden away because I had no room left on my walls to display her. I have decided to put her on auction and maybe she'll find a new home.

THIS IS A CV THAT I USED TO DISPLAY AT VARIOUS EXHIBITIONS

I sold the painting of a Breton village (see below) and felt inspired to paint another Breton scene in a similar style, this time with boats and a few houses in the background. I had some acrylic paper left with an appealing canvas weave which offered little resistance to my brushes, Here is the result....

I decided to paint another 14"x11" acrylic and guache painting on mounting board, with a Scottish coastal theme in the same "modern" style as my painting of "Skye seen from Kyle of Lochalsh" which I painted yesterday. I had no problems with the colour balance this time and it went smoothly. I called this one "West Coast of Scotland".

I spent a good part of the day trying to paint a more abstract seascape and had a tricky time trying to get the right colour balance, having to rework the piece several times but eventually got there to my satisfaction.
I worked on mounting board with acrylic and guache mix as usual, and the proposed size was large for me, approximately 14"x11" . So maybe unfamiliarity with the size of the painting slowed me down too.
The subject of the painting is the Isle of Skye as seen from Kyle of Lochalsh on the west coast of Scotland.

These are two recent works, the first is a favorite subject of mine, St. Katherine's Dock, which is just behind Tower Bridge London. This is from a photograph I took facing Canary Dock. You can see Canada House, with its pointed roof in the background.

I am considering painting some colourful abstract paintings and am half way there with the second painting which is a whimsical view of a cove in Cornwall.

Here are two more romantic views of Scotland, a ruined castle by a loch and a view of the Kintyre peninsula on the west coast.
The portrait of a lady was inspired by a kimono I saw in a photograph.

These are recent works of mine. The first one is a market stall in Romania, the second is a romantic fantasy of a woman, the third is a view of a bay in the west of Scotland and the last one is a scene of a cornfield in Brittany. All are painted using watercolour and acrylic.

HERE ARE SEVERAL FRONT PAGES THAT I ILLUSTRATED FOR THE GERMAN ARTS MAGAZINE "LESART"

THIS IS THE FIRST BLOG THAT I HAVE EVER PUBLISHED and the feature on the left more or less tells you about me.
Apart from Art my other principal interest is Linguistics and I speak several languages including Mandarin, which I started to study in the year 2000. I wanted a hobby and a challenge which would keep my mind busy for the rest of my life. I think it was a good choice because I will never speak it perfectly, let alone read and write it, and it has a very strong artistic element to it, which appeals to me.

I am married to Anne, and we spent some years in the Canary Islands where I studied painting, and together we ran a business when we returned to London, selling coins, stamps,costume jewellery and my paintings too. It was fun while it lasted, but, like all good things it came to an end when the 9/11 atrocity put a stop to the American tourist trade in London.
The editor of a German art magazine called Lesart, saw my work in London while he was on holiday in the UK, and he engaged me as frontpage artist for four years...however, he discovered computerised artwork one day, and that was the end of my arrangement with him.
Nowadays, I sell on www.galleries-online.co.uk/ fredsegal If you want to see my latest work please visit that website. I can be contacted from there too.

THIS PICTURE is of an introductory item for the readers of Lesart and was good publicity for my work in Germany. The magazine had 40,00 readers and was distributed all over the country. In those pre-computerised days I had to prepare loads of samples and post them to Germany for approval. Such is the nature of publishing that the editors were very fickle at times, and this was reflected when they changed their minds about the subject matter and I had to reject a lot of work I had prepared as it was no longer relevant.
The article dealt with how I came to be working for them, which readers found curious as I am from England, and it gave examples of how I interpreted their ideas about the subject matter for the front page for the particular edition in hand.