Happy New Year! Ah, okay, perhaps a bit late for that. Well, I hope your year hasn’t gone off the rails yet, then. I’ll admit I’ve been struggling lately, with my painting. Perhaps I’m not well advised to admit this ‘in public’ (I have been told, as a teaching artist), but I believe I […]

I’m not talking about teeth here (although I could). The little cropped images spread through this post are sections from paintings that I’ve been producing for my next Video-on-demand. Sort of ‘teasers’, I hope. The film will be longer than my first and is likely to feature several paintings and mini ‘technique tutorials’.  Apologies […]

I‘ve managed to get out a fair few times to paint this year, but most opportunities are now behind me.  There may be a few more, but any bad luck can mean wasted journeys and time. Even if weather’s pretty good the low sun of Autumn and Winter can often get stuck behind cloud […]

This was my experiment with Langton Prestige, in the studio.  A nice paper, I think, but I would need to adapt my painting approach to it, plus it is considerably more costly than good old Bockingford… Paying the paper tax No paper makes watercolour easy, obviously, so why keep hoping?… Every so often, with […]

In a moderately successful attempt to avoid Bristol rush hour traffic I departed the city early, or so I thought (7am) and began drawing out this view by 8.30am.   On a grass verge of the main road into Lacock – a very picturesque, very medieval village in Wiltshire, for a ‘day off’ with painting […]

Hope you’ve had a good month, out there in the world. It included holiday time for me, and I got down to Cornwall, to a most favourite spot for a bit of relaxation and of course plein air painting.  The above was done on a fantastic day at Booby’s Bay, which is the best […]

Boat & huts at Walberswick. This is a recent painting, of Walberswick, from photos I took on holiday a few years ago.  I took a snap at the first point of pausing, also shown here. I usually don’t paint in many ‘stages’, as per a step-by-step, normally only stopping to allow full drying once […]

Black is back:  I refer to the songster, out there singing in the rain. There’s no more uplifting thing in the world to me than the blackbird’s return each year.  Though I probably look a pretty mad figure if the neighbours saw me, sat out there in the rain literally soaking it up.  Never mind.  […]

Hello again. Better news this month, I now have ‘wheels’.  This means I’ll be able to travel a bit more off the beaten track for plein air painting, and for art group demos, etc.  I visited the Mendip hills the other day, not actually very far from me, but difficult to visit without a car. […]

This time of year is one of my favourites because of how the trees are revealed without foliage.  The painting above is a recent one, and a bit experimental with its use of black in the mix.  Inspired partly by the crows too, which are often a distinct feature of walks in the fields through […]