
Clifton Suspension Bridge
I’m still playing around with gouache painting. It’s both incredibly difficult, but also really energising to be learning something new. To keep things a little more controllable I’m allowing myself some time away from life work and am experimenting with…

Gouache Portrait
A really enjoyable little project in gouache, undertaken back in August. I used a limited palette of yellow ochre, venetian red, ivory black, cobalt blue and burnt umber. I’m really pleased with the result. It’s a good likeness and the…

Gouache figure painting
Following on from watercolour, I have also been experimenting with gouache. It is a medium that I have found to be unlike any other, with its own unique set of advantages and problems. I absolutely hated using it at first,…

Illuminated Interior
A little watercolour interior. This is a lamp we bought after Nelly accidentally smashed its predecessor (which was something a lot more tasteful). It’s a pretty big table lamp, around 3′ high I would guess, and makes me think of…

Experiments with Watercolour
Although my output over the last few months has been pretty sparse (to say the least), I have been thinking a lot about different mediums and more experimentation. With this in mind I bought a starter set of watercolours and…

White Lilac
Another painting from a few months ago, this one of white lilac. Thinking that the delicate blossom wouldn’t last very long, I worked quickly and looked for big structural shapes within the larger heads, before picking out a few details…

Garlic with the blue and white jug
Well, it’s been quite a while since my last post. Many other things got in the way over the summer months, not least some ill health, and art has been the area to suffer. I’ve got a few new pieces…

Tomatoes on the Vine
A fairly rapid oil sketch of some vine tomatoes and the paper bag they arrived home in. I tried to not to fuss each brush mark, and to put down thicker paint and little medium to see how things fused…

Something for Fun
In due course I’ll probably paint over these, but in the meantime, they are a bit of fun. I enjoyed not really thinking too much about composition, and in the case of the Sharpies, cracking open some of my lesser…

Duck Eggs
I painted these duck eggs (in a white ceramic egg holder) over an old figure study that wasn’t worth keeping hold of. I intended this to be a high-key painting, with subtle, pale hues conveying a sense of calm. Instead,…
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