It has been a great start to the New Year as I’m embarking on a new commission to create a piece of Wirral history.

Newspaper clipping advertising the Ferry between Liverpool and Eastham, 1816.

This year is the bicentenary of the first steamer that ran on the River Mersey between Liverpool and Eastham on Wirral, The Princess Charlotte. Sketches and lithographs of the boat featured in 19th Century newspapers and literature but it has never been properly depicted in colour before. To create the painting I’ll be working off these old prints, along with sketches I made at Eastham in 2012 / 13. Having spent many hours absorbing the landscape and river, I’m really excited by the prospect of depicting a stretch of the Mersey coastline I really love!

The painting will go on display for the first time at the Wirral History & Heritage Fair at Birkenhead Town Hall on Saturday 12th March. Check back in a month to see the finished work, and if you can make it down on the 12th – see you there. Stuart