WITH summer comes the smell of flowers, the smell of ice cream and the smell of paint – and other substances – on canvas.

The Thurrock Art Trail is on its way back for its fourth year, having made its way from experimental art project to a regular fixture on the Thurrock arts map.

Running as part of Essex Summer of Art, the artistic quartet who set up the trail in 2012 have this year stepped aside to let Horndon-on-the-Hill ceramic artist Patricia Douglas take the reins.

With more of a focus on public spaces and galleries, Patricia explained this year the show was different, with the festival “standing on its own two feet”, though open to an ever-increasing number of independent artists.

She said: “The main difference is that this year the ownership of the trail is in the hands of the artists themselves, but we are still really well provided for with several thriving galleries joining us and some unusual public spaces.

“We are still open to new artists joining the trail.”

From a sculpture trail at Barnards Farm Gardens, in West Horndon, to exhibitions at Acme Artist Studios, in Purfleet, and Swan Gallery in Horndon on the Hill, art lovers will be able to get a taste for what “a place of industry and transport – far from the Essex of John Constable – can produce”.

Running from Saturday, June 27, to Saturday, July 18, the Thurrock Art Trail, otherwise known as ThAT, is part of the Essex Summer of Art.

The deadline for joining the trail is this Sunday. For more info, visit thurrock arttrail.org.uk