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The Black Shuck Painting

2012, Acrylic Painting

This piece was featured in the book “The Illustrated Tales of Norfolk”, written by John Ling and published by Amberley Books.

This was painted more as a sketch than actually as a proper illustration. It was created to practice a faster method of painting while focusing less on precision and allowing the natural brush strokes to have more dominance in the image. Although it is a only a sketch it is always a painting I have liked. Naturally I was thrilled when I was approached by John Ling asking to include it in his book in 2019.

The black shuck is an omen of death which appears as a large black dog with glowing red eyes. It is often considered to be the inspiration for the book “Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.