Fascinated by the shipping forecast since childhood I decided to use it as a vehicle to raise funds for  Macmillan Cancer Support. As a professional artist since 2006 I have been a been supporter of the wonderful work carried out by Macmillan for some years and designed a number of fundraising ventures in the past.

The Shipping Forecast - An Artist's Journey will take me by sea to all 31 Met Office Shipping areas.  A travelogue and photographic diary through social media of 31 individual adventures at sea. Each journey will inspire an original seascape in oil and a number of limited edition prints for each area, over 300 pieces of artwork with 60% of all sales going to Macmillan Cancer Support. 

To compliment the visual element of the project I am asking for contributions from a variety of writers, established, new, young and old to add a short piece of prose or poetry to link in with each shipping region. I am pleased to announce that so far;

Writers Simon Armitage CBE, Liz Lochhead ( Scotland's Makar) , Don Paterson OBE and musician and lyricist Peter Coyle.  

The journey will take at least two years to complete and will include a number of art events and exhibitions along the way. The opening art event 31 art postcards painted in a day at a Gallery Glasgow's West End raised over £1000 .