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This is a subject that I frequently return to. From the beginning in the early years of the 1970s when I took up painting scenes of ordinary present day life, I spent much of my time in city situations. I became aware in my wanderings of the wonderful opportunities for subjects to paint.

The first painting shown here is Glittering Dusk painted in 1996. It had a long gestation period before it was even started on. The idea for it began twenty years earlier in the mid-1970s when I noticed the mother shown with her children passing a fashion shop window.  I planned then to paint the subject, reprising the people I had seen, by using my wife and two small daughters, but it was not taken up, other subjects intervened. It evolved however over the following years. It became amalgamated with other painting projects, and the use of people from another generation. The final result was something much more complex and ambitious.

Rain is associated with umbrellas. The curves of which as can be seen for example in Wet City, that I often use with curbside yellow lines and railings. They all form part of an overall unity, a pattern of shapes that help give some structure to my compositions, scarce noticed yet they contribute to the visual effects.

Added to this subject of rain, most shown as if in dusk or winter, is the use of fading daylight enhanced by the lighting of city streets and shop windows. The challenge is of creating interesting lighting effects and enhanced atmospheres, in which my people can wander.