Winter Landscapes

1996 was an eventful year with a significant development in the business. In February we held the fourth exhibition at our home in Ponteland. The theme was Winter Landscapes which meant watercolours of Winter Trees featured heavily. These were inspired by lots of late afternoon walks in the countryside with our German Shepherd Max. Often the focus point was a few solitary bales dusted with snow (like giant Swiss Rolls) silhouetted trees set against a backdrop of a wintery sunset. This sketchbook watercolour of winter trees is typical of many of the paintings featured in the exhibition.

The key to the success of these paintings was to keep them as simple as possible, first time washes applied over rough, heavily texture hand made paper that helped to capture the bleak rural landscape. A major influence for these paintings was the watercolour paintings of Rowland Hilder which I’d studied since being a teenager. Hours of studying his work meant I could bring my own take on the winter landscape.

When giving painting lessons, I often get my students to copy Hilder’s work. I’ve done that myself to demonstrate his techniques, especially winter trees.

Eldon Gardens

No sooner had the exhibition finished, an opportunity presented itself. The year 1996 was “won” for the North East by the regional art association Northern Arts. Bringing together the counties of Cleveland, Cumbria, Durham, Northumberland and Tyne & Wear, the region prided itself on listing more than 3000 exhibitions, events, commissions and residencies from March until December 1996. It was during this time that Eldon Gardens approached me about potentially installing my artwork in a “pop up” style gallery in their busy shopping mall.

For six weeks, an empty unit within Eldon Gardens was transformed into a hive of activity – attracting shoppers, art lovers and tourists to the region, resulting in a phenomenally successful month of sales for Alan Reed Art and a boost overall in the community’s interest and perception of art.

As the six weeks quickly drew to a close, Susan and I discussed the idea of opening a gallery full time within Eldon Gardens, having been inspired by the Arts Council’s initiative. We returned in the autumn and ran the gallery for almost six years as a successful full time retail outlet until March 2002.

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Henley-on-Thames

1995 was the first year Susan and I went to the Henley Royal Regatta, a stage where several of my favourite subjects all came together for one colourful performance, skies, water, figures and architecture. The previous year’s trip to Venice had prepared me well. Susan and I had great fun getting dressed up for the Stewards Enclosure, blazer, shirt and tie for me and Susan with skirts and dresses below the knee. I was able to gather lots of wonderful reference of the young men practising and racing, from dawn to dusk. My studies helped me to build up a collection of paintings of Henley Royal Regatta to display in The Stewards Enclosure for the next few years.

Watercolours of Rowing

This study titled “Last Practise” is typical of some of the watercolours I sold from the gallery in the Stewards Enclosure during subsequent regattas. Even though the sun has disappeared behind the riverside buildings, there is still a strong feeling of light, which I’ve created by keeping the base washes clean, simple and pure, whilst making the main points of interest, strong, defined and sharp.

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In August 1994 we returned to Venezia with a clear agenda for me to paint on location every day. We stayed at the Hotel Cavalletto for three days before moving on to Marghera in the suburb of Venice to stay with Susan’s friend Franca and her family. Whilst we were at the Hotel Cavalletto (how I appreciated their very efficient air conditioning) I would rise early before the crowds to paint. On one particular morning La Piazzetta di San Marco was deserted apart from a solitary figure sweeping the square with an old wicker brush and some cats. It was very hot and humid. I sat to paint the view looking towards the columns of Venice’s two patrons, Marco and Todaro which mark the official gateway to Venice. I used a limited palette of Cadmium Lemon, Yellow ochre and Paynes Grey. As I look at this scene I can quickly recall the humidity and the sweat tricking under my tee shirt. The sketch I painted on location sold but not before I gleaned the content for a much larger studio watercolour which later became a limited edition print.

Marghera

It was here that I began to entrench myself in the Venetian way of life, often stealing himself away for a morning’s painting by getting the bus into Venice at 7am before returning for lunch at one o’clock on the dot – an Italian custom. The pace of life in Venezia can be wonderfully sedate as Susan knows to well, who went from rushing into town on the bus for the school run to waiting patiently to be sailed down the Grand Canal in a Vaparetto. You can read more of our story from this trip on a Reedart Holidays blog post.

Over the fourteen days we enjoyed day trips to fair Verona and a morning service at Chiesa Evangelica di Padova where Susan attended every week when she lived in Italy. We had boat trips to beautiful Burano to see its famous coloured houses, to Treviso and the coastal town of Chioggia with our two children Louise and Oliver. This provided me with an abundance of inspiration for my artwork, 14 watercolours of Venezia painted on location and lots of fond memories for the family.

My time in Venice really helped me to loosen up and “draw” with the brush, rather than trying to rely on too much preparatory work in pencil. In many ways it was a precursor to the style I adopted in my sketchbook watercolours starting in 2002 where I don’t use a pencil at all.

Edinburgh

Squeezing as much sightseeing as we could into our fourteen day trip, my mind raced with visions of this enigmatic, unique city for my return that would contrast the paintings of Edinburgh that I was furiously producing for an exhibition at the Malcolm Innes Gallery in 1995.

The relationship between Edinburgh and Venice goes back to the 18th century when Edinburgh continued to expand rapidly. The medieval part of Edinburgh, now known as the Old Town was no longer large enough to contain the city’s rapidly growing population. A solution to the problem was sought in the form of a public competition inviting plans to develop the city. The young architect James Craig won – his plan being an elegant Neo-classical development located to the north of the castle. Building work carried out between 1767 and 1830 became known as the New Town and was noted as a huge success. The result was one of the most attractive cities in the whole of Europe, and Edinburgh was soon dubbed the “Venice of the North”.

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Di Rollo

1993 was a massive year for Susan and I. In January I met my dad’s agent Bob Pringle with my dad in Edinburgh. I’d just painted two new original watercolours of Edinburgh which I was planning on delivering to a gallery who were interested in showing my work. However they were closed when I turned up. When Bob saw the paintings he decided to buy them instead. He also introduced me to Di Rollo, a print publisher and the Malcolm Innes Gallery.

Malcolm Innes Gallery

By the time the year had ended, Di Rollo had published several of my watercolours of Edinburgh as limited edition prints. The first was the Grassmarket which sold out in less than a year. We quickly built up quite a collection which included Glassgow, the Forth Rail Bridge and Newcastle.

The Malcolm Innes also started exhibiting and selling my paintings. In 1995 they held an exhibition of my watercolours of Edinburgh and Venice titled A Tale of Two Cities. Thus began several very fruitful business relationships.

Marriage

In February Susan and I were married. All of a sudden I was a married man and a dad with Susan’s two teenagers, Louise and Oliver. Max, the first of several German Shepherds we’ve owned, also joined the new Reed family that Christmas. We also joined Kingsland Church in Byker which became City Church, Newcastle.

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Emerson Chambers

When reflecting on my career as an artist, this view of Grey Street in Newcastle always springs to mind. I recall getting permission to get reference material from the second floor of Emerson Chambers, now the home of Waterstones, in the early nineties. At the time, the whole street was a bustling scene of figures and cars lining what has been described as one of the finest curved streets in Europe.

I quickly developed a style of painting figures which was loose, spontaneous and made each one recognisable in terms of age and stage. My first watercolour of Grey Street from this angle was a breakthrough painting for me. At the time it was one of the most expensive paintings I’d sold. I later painted another version that I had reproduced as a limited edition print, the first of many prints of Newcastle’s Grey Street.

BBC Look North

1992 was the year that saw my paintings of Newcastle being featured on BBC’s Look North. At the time I had an exhibition at James Alder’s Gallery in Ponteland. Most of the paintings were taken from high vantage points which gave an unusual perspective of well known buildings and streets including Grey Street.

Although I was delighted to have my paintings featured on television, I was horrified to hear the reporter Wendy Gibson say that I didn’t use a pencil to do any preliminary drawings for my studio paintings. At the time that wasn’t true, however ten years later when I started to use handmade leather-bound sketchbooks to paint in on location, I decided to “draw” with a brush with almost every sketchbook watercolour. Wendy was being prophetic without either of us knowing!

Proposal

In the summer that year I proposed to Susan on the beach at Newton by the Sea and she said yes……the following day!

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Newcastle United

Like many football fans, I was saddened by the passing away of football legend Kevin Keegan on 20th July 2026. Almost straight away my mind went back to his first game for Newcastle in August 1982 against QPR. I was there with some of my pals and my dad in the East Stand. Within his first few touches, we knew we were watching a very special football player. Although we had seen him playing on television, we didn’t really know just how good he was until we saw him live.

My dad and I would often talk about that first match and some of the touches he made, aside from his winning goal. Later that season my dad and I got to meet Kevin at Newcastle’s training ground. My dad had painted a watercolour of the first Great North Run and he managed to get a publicity photograph of Kevin signing the painting. Somewhere I have a black and white photograph of Kevin with my dad.

At some point in 1984, the year I went self employed, I painted an acrylic action painting of Kevin Keegan wearing the Blue Star Black and white strip. It was his last season as a player. I must have been to every Newcastle home game when Kevin was a player including the last one, a friendly against Liverpool. When he returned as manager, my dad bought a season ticket, so I was able to see many more home games. It was the time when Newcastle United were the “Entertainers”.

Toon Army

It was this era when I was inspired to do my painting of the Toon Army. I used to have a gallery in Eldon Gardens and on a Saturday afternoon, about twenty minutes before kick off, I would leave the gallery to go to the match. The view looking towards the back of the Gallowgate and the Strawberry Pub with fans pouring in was what I wanted to capture. It seems to resonate with many fans. I left a copy of the print among the many tributes to Kevin Keegan outside St James Park.

Commissions

A few years ago I received a lovely commission from a Newcastle fan who asked my to re-paint the scene but with his son and grandson amongst the fans. The view has changed with many new buildings, however the mood and atmosphere is the same for the Black and White Army.

There have been lots of changes for the fans over the last few seasons however, most fans will acknowledge that it was Kevin Keegan who laid the foundation for the successes that we have been seeing over the last few seasons. Thank you Kevin, rest in peace, you were much loved.

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Born Again

When I first me Susan, we talked about our faith and how we had become Christians. For Susan, her new birth experience began when she was living in Venice in the mid eighties. Our first meal together was at an Italian restaurant in Ponteland and she would often talk about her love for Italy.

In June 1991 we went to Venice together for the first time. We stayed for several nights at Susan’s friend’s home on the outskirts of Venice but travelled across to the islands linked by over400 bridges. I was completely in awe of the incredible architecture, the light and the overall feel of this unique Italian city. I couldn’t help but paint several watercolours on location which simply whetted my appetite for another trip.

Grand Canal

This view of the Grand Canal from Ponte dell’Accademia (one of only 4 bridges which cross the Grand Canal) is one of the most painted in Venice. Over the years I’ve painted several watercolours on location and many more in my Studio. I guess it was only fitting that this was the scene to represent one of the most significant events for Susan and I in 1991.

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Ponteland

This is the opening watercolour that I painted in the handmade sketchbook that I had made in Venice in 2007. This is part of the story behind this painting of Bamburgh.

Susan and I met in the Diamond Inn, Ponteland in February 1990. One of the first subjects we talked about was our Christian faith. The conversation went on into the early hours of the morning and it wasn’t long before we started going out together. That summer we had our first family holiday with Susan’s two children, Louise and Oliver aged 11 and 9 at the time. My friend’s parents had a static caravan in Beadnell which we used for a week.

It was a trip down memory lane for me. When I was a child growing up, I remember several family holidays along the north east coast which included stays at Beadnell, Seahouses and Budle Bay. The memories were engrained in my mind in a very positive way, so I knew that Louise and Oliver would find the holiday as equally enjoyable.

Bamburgh Castle

For five out of the seven nights we had fish and chips from Seahouses which we often ate on Seahouses harbour wall. On one of those evenings I took a series of photographs of the sun setting behind Bamburgh Castle with Holy Island in the far distance. I also did a sketch. From the reference I painted a large watercolour in my studio which I sold from an exhibition at the People’s Theatre in 1992. I also painted a watercolour of Beadnell Harbour which became the inspiration for another large painting.

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Venice

This is the story of a special handmade sketchbook purchased in Venice.

In May 2007 Susan and I were in Venice with some friends for several days. It was an inspirational trip for several reasons. One of the highlights was seeing a wonderful exhibition of John Singer Sargent watercolours of Venice. Another was a visit to a small local shop called Il Mercante Veneziano that sold beautifully made sketchbooks and journals. I’m a sucker for both. I bought a small lined notebook and asked the gentleman who made the books if he would make me a bespoke leather bound sketchbook containing sheets of Amalfi watercolour paper 14″ x 10″. He said it would take a few days, but true to his word I was able to collect it for €52.

I’m so pleased to have another hand made travel Journal which my sister bought for me when she was in Venice on her honeymoon in 2000. In this journal I have an entry for the purchase of this handmade sketchbook containing a business card for Il Mercante Veneziano and details of the purchase.

Amalfi

The small note book was purchased for the specific purpose of writing ideas, text, events and dates to accompany  watercolours that I would paint in the larger bespoke sketchbook containing the Amalfi paper. My initial idea was to paint a watercolour that represented each year that my wife Susan have known each other. The painting would depict a scene from a trip that would help describe the personal and business journey we’ve been on since 1990.

Relevant text relating to the subject would be handwritten alongside the painting with an appropriate Bible verse.

“Commit your works to the LORD, and your thoughts will be established”. Proverbs 16:3

I gave myself a realistic goal of painting one watercolour a week starting from 21st August 2007. One of the watercolours was of the Colosseum in Rome. I’d painted a similar version on a sheet of Amalfi paper that was given to me by a worker at the Amalfi Museum in 2003.

I was able to complete all the paintings by December 2007 but never made a start on the text. However I was able to present the book to Susan as a Christmas present that year with a handmade sketchbook. It contained 18 watercolours that represented all the years we had been together at that point.

Nineteen years later and I’m left with an incomplete project, another nineteen paintings to do and an ongoing story to tell. I’ve decided to bring this to completion by writing a blog post about each painting in the first handmade sketchbook from Venice. Some of the blog content will go into the first sketchbook. I’m also going to make my own handmade sketchbook containing watercolour paper. I’m intending to paint a watercolour in this one for each year from 2008 to 2026 describing our journey.

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Today, 27th June 2026 my wife and I are celebrating 25 years since our kidney transplant. On the 27th June 2001 I donated one of my kidneys to Susan through a successful transplant operation at Newcastle’s Freeman hospital.

At that time, the average life expectancy of a transplanted kidney was 11 years. Today we are so grateful for the extra 25 years God has given us together. It was described in local press as a “one in a million” chance because of Susan’s unusual DNA.

When I first met Susan in 1990 she told me quite early on in our relationship that she and her two children had been diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease. And that at some point she could go into kidney failure and need a transplant. I remember saying to her that she could have one of mine but Susan said that would be unlikely as live donors are usually family members. In 2000 Susan’s kidney function began to deteriorate. Susan’s mother asked her consultant if she could be tested to see if she was a match. Susan said that I’d like to be tested too, so the tests began. As it turned out, my mother-in-law wasn’t a match, but I was.

A date was set in 2001 and the operation went ahead. Susan recalls her surgeon saying that the kidney “immediately sprung into action” when it was transplanted. The day after the transplant, the surgeon who removed my kidney came in to see me. I asked how Susan was and he said the operation was a success, although the transplanted kidney could be rejected by Susan’s body. Straight away the words of Jesus from Matthew’s gospel came into my head “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?  So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” I said to the surgeon that it wouldn’t reject, the kidney became Susan’s when we got married. That part of our story was featured on Songs of Praise 5 years later which had the theme of people given a new start in life. The programme was filmed in Newcastle at City Church where we have been members since 1993.

Kidney Transplant

Kidney transplant surgery is a procedure takes a healthy kidney from a living or deceased donor into a patient with kidney failure. Taking about 2 to 4 hours under general anesthesia, the surgeon places the new organ in the lower abdomen, connecting it to nearby blood vessels and the bladder.

Kidney Sharing Scheme

The UK Living Kidney Sharing Scheme (UKLKSS) started in April 2007

This kidney exchange programme has increased the number of people who can receive transplants from living kidney donors and the opportunities for patients who wait a long time for a transplant.

Our two children Louise and Oliver, are experiencing deteriorating kidney function and are being monitored by the Freeman Hospital. As we celebrate this special anniversary we are praying that they will each receive a healthy kidney transplant that will be an equal blessing to them as it has for us.

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