I like working with old black and white prints. For a start off there are no colour distractions which always makes it easier to do the drawing....and that was important as it is quite a detailed scene. Secondly I can use my imagination and use whatever colours I want ! I thought this would be an ideal scene for a 'nocturne' or moonlight painting. There is no better painter of moonlight than John Atkinson Grimshaw (no..not even Whistler!) so I tried to imagine how he would have set about capturing this scene. The reflections in the wet cobbles certainly set the atmosphere and the lone girl adds an aura of mystery. Is she going to the Priory? Why is she on her own on a damp night like this? You can ask your own questions and give your own answers but she does manage to involve us.

However because this drawing was saved it means I can use it over and over again without all the boring bit (and painstaking bit!) of having to redraw it. Blue and orange are complementary colours so I thought it would be fun to work over the sketch using just those two colours. The painting was never intended to be totally representational so I left the drawing lines to show through very clearly and also deliberately highlighted the Priory itself.