The Four Rivers was one of those interesting commissions that doesn't arise very often, probably once in a lifetime.An architect who was building an Arts and Crafts house in Lancashire approached me to produce a series of works for an enormous high wall. The brief was for lots of colour and a connection with the local area. That part of Lancashire had suffered a great deal of flooding, largely due to farming methods and climate change, so I decided upon the four connecting waterways.

The Rivers Yarrow and Lostock flow through the village, taking the overflow water drainage from the fields. They run into the River Douglas, which runs alongside the canal, and has a lot of industrial factories close to the banking. River Douglas runs to the Ribble Estuary, which meets the Irish Sea. The Ribble Estuary painting is from Hesketh Bank, which is a natural flood plain, it used to be drained from water so that livestock could graze on the rich salty marshland. Because of the flooding to the towns the land was returned to a flood plane and managed by the RSPB as a nature reserve.

Each panel of Indian Khadi handmade paper measures 80cm x 200cm, mixed media of watercolour, charcoal ink and pastel.