AWARD-WINNING artist Adrian Rigby is enjoying one of the surprise successes of his career with a painting of the doomed Titanic ship.

The Darwen painter, famed for his animal and wildlife prints, was stunned to hear the picture was one of last year's best-selling prints with 3,000 sales notched up.

He said: "I'm very pleased but surprised too because I only really painted it for myself.

"It's a very romantic picture because it shows the ship under its last sunset before the events of that dreadful night.

"It shows the ship on a very flat ocean, as it was at the time, with the last rays just glancing across it and a dramatic sunset behind."

Adrian decided to recreate the scene after watching this year's blockbuster movie Titanic with its chart-topping theme "My Heart Will Go On," and hopes the painting is historically correct.

He said: "There are a lot of experts on the subject and I was expecting some criticism but there's been none so far.

"I tried to make sure everything was correct, like the number of portholes and so on, but with only black and white reference pictures to go off it was quite difficult.

"The painting also took quite a while to complete as I only did it in my spare time.

"The detail was quite fiddly but I'm pleased with the end result.

"I couldn't believe it when they told me how many copies had been sold."

Adrian, 36, has won several top awards for his animal prints, including best overall artist in the Wildlife Arts Society annual show in London two years ago.

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