Gateway Song to Seven Sisters White Cliffs

Print description

View of The Seven Sisters cliffs across the English Channel in the heart of the South Downs National Park from Seaford Head.

Print details

I created this print from my original ink drawing to which I apply colour digitally. Printed on fine art paper using archival inks. From a limited edition of 100. I individually sign and number each print.

2011 ink and wash sketch of the Seven Sisters.

I have lived in Sussex for nearly fifteen years, my love for the countryside has often taken me to this beautiful landscape. I have depicted this landscape in my art prints on many occasions. Coming back to it, in awe of its painterly qualities, the musicality of the cliffs, the mesmerising meandering of the Cuckmere River. The landscape of the chalk. I own a Penguin book titled ‘The Flowers of the chalk’, it has lovely illustrations that describe the uniqueness of this ecosystem. I love waking up on the cliffs, with the light of the sun bouncing in the chalk so strongly that it blinds you, then feeling dizzy with vertigo by the cliff edge. The Bus 12X Eastbourne to Brighton. The rambling with friends up and down the Seven or more Brows and the Seven Tops. Swimming in the sea looking up at the fortress of chalk that Haven is made of. Running down the slope in the wind hoping to learn to fly, envious of the seagulls. And then the prospect of coming back again to Cuckmere Haven, for any of the reasons above or to explore something new.

Seven Sisters

In December 2011 I produced the first sketch of this view. Ten years later I had a request by a client to revisit this small work and turn it into a large print.

The Seven Sisters is a range of chalk hills in East Sussex that meet the English Channel in the shape of white chalk cliffs. They are located between the mouth of the Cuckmere River and Birling Gap and belong to the South Downs National Park.

Sussex by the Sea

I’m just in love with all these three,
The Weald and the Marsh and the Down countree.
Nor I don’t know which I love the most,
The Weald or the Marsh or the white Chalk coast!

I’ve buried my heart in a ferny hill,
Twix’ a liddle low shaw an’ a great high gill.
Oh hop-bine yaller an’ wood-smoke blue,
I reckon you’ll keep her middling true!

I’ve loosed my mind for to out and run
On a Marsh that was old when Kings begun.
Oh Romney Level and Brenzett reeds,
I reckon you know what my mind needs!

I’ve given my soul to the Southdown grass,
And sheep-bells tinkled where you pass.
Oh Firle an’ Ditchling an’ sails at sea,
I reckon you keep my soul for me!

Whilst I was creating this print in December 2021 I had an exhibition at Gallery 94 in Glyndebourne called ‘Fair Ground’. The theme of the exhibition reflected on the poem ‘Sussex’ by Rudyard Kipling. This poem glorifies the beauty of the Sussex Countryside which has been inspirational in the creation of this collection of prints.