My oil paintings cover a number of themes. There are landscapes in a broadly impressionist
style - many painted exclusively with the palette knife using impasto. Some more
recent work is a hybrid of still life and landscape - pictures which are painted
from small tableau that are assembled in the studio - model figures, plants, shells,
found objects, and always with one of my earlier landscapes referenced in the background.
On one level they are exercises in composition and colour - miniature landscapes
that can be ordered and re-arranged at will. But equally they seem to develop a meaning
and message of their own - consciously or not they tell a story - and probably a
different story to each person looking. I hope you like them.
Artists of the past 100 years or so seem to have had little interest in 3 dimensions.
I find this surprising - achieving a sense of space and recession on the 2 dimensional
picture plane is challenging but also immensely satisfying - and seems to me to be
a worthy objective. I feel I have come some way in understanding this - and indeed
one of my paintings “Labranda, Turkey” is featured in the book “Oil Painting Workshop”
by Aggy Boshoff in demonstration of the technique of aerial perspective.
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Gallery
Watercolour is my primary medium for sketches and note taking in the field - it’s
immediate and portable - but don’t expect to see any of these note book ideas on
this site! They are sketchy and scruffy and for private consumption only but essential
when working back in the studio on oil landscapes - and enable that “connection”
with the location that cannot be achieved with a photograph.
The watercolours that are here were painted in the studio - sometimes using unconventional
techniques - and sometimes in combination with pen and pastel. For years I struggled
to enjoy painting with this medium - but the moment I stopped trying to paint a proper
watercolour in a traditional way I started to achieve some results. This is a difficult
medium but very rewarding when you find a way of making it work for you.
Paintings included here are some of Sissinghurst Gardens and “White Cliffs” and “Violet Cliffs” which are reinforced with ink outlines. There are also some originals from the “Great Misunderstandings of The World” series of which you can see more in the Prints section.
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Oils
Oils
Watercolours
