Guarding Gifford | Paul James

Guarding Gifford

‘Guarding Gifford’ is a significant artwork for Paul James, this landscape brings back such great memories and nostalgia…

Paul’s great interest in the Inland Waterways and narrow boating stems from the time that he stayed on his narrow boat ‘Fool’s Paradise?’ and travelled the canals and rivers of Britain. But how did ‘Guarding Gifford’ come about? Well…

This canvas features two historic narrow boats ‘Clematis’ the motor and ‘Gifford’ the un-powered butty.

Paul felt this needed to be a large picture in order to demonstrate the robustness of the structure of the hulls and to capture the interesting shapes, perspectives and atmosphere of the setting.

After its’ completion, Paul learnt that the dog ‘Jake’ had been a well-known character on ‘the cut’. He added the duck as it seemed that something had caught Jake’s eye and created a bit of a dynamic between these two characters…