I paint the sea
I capture light, movement and weather As an artist people often ask “what do you paint”, it’s a fair question and my stock answer is – I primarily paint the sea. The conversation can often stall there but over the years I have learned to give another answer to a more important question that doesn’t…
Sailing, art, too many books & the Fastnet Race
Today’s blog post is shamelessly autobiographical – I am obsessed with sailing, art and books. For the last few days I have been moving desks, tables and bookcases, which has lead to hundreds of books and thousands of magazines being made homeless ! I thought it was bad enough when I moved into the house…
Drawing the line
DRAWING lies at the very core of my art practice. I am interested in line and form. When I first discovered Matisse’s drawings I was impressed with his confident use of line. Then I looked at Japanese and Chinese ink drawings and realised where Matisse and Picasso got their inspiration. For the last 6 decades…
plastering & woodwork
For the last week or so I have been doing some long overdue DIY. We moved into our rambling Southsea house over 30 years ago and my enthusiasm for DIY waned after the first 5 years. Work takes over everyone’s lives at some point and as an artist and lecturer I became swamped with work…
a dastardly PLAN !
Planning. . . In my experience, whatever business you are in, it can be all too easy to lose track of goals – we become reactive rather than proactive. I trained as an artist over 50 years ago and have had a fine art practice ever since. During that time I have worked hard but…
RED HOT pokers & other distractions
my neighbours red hot pokers – a story without end ! As an artist, I am inspired by nature, the weather, the seasons, the relentless cycle of CHANGE and over the last couple of years I have created a body of work exploring my tiny Southsea garden. Sometimes I get distracted by what is growing…
Studio 3 : the saga continues. .
“The Big Revamp” on Studio 3 has been put on hold but not forgotten. Next week, I will be photographed in my studio and the photographer likes all the trappings of a “working studio” so rather than continuing to sanitise my space any further, I have imported even more clutter, in the form of lots…
dilemma
I am launching a new series of work and deciding upon the scale and format is always a DILEMMA. In fact there is a new dilemma at every turn. As a former illustrator, life was simple – you knew the dimensions of the book jacket and scaled up the artwork so it was “half up”…
Class Act : GROUNDCOURSE and beyond
Still life : aka “broken dreams” Omega Centre It’s been a long while since my last blog post and a lot of water has passed under lots of bridges ! To begin, last summer I had a rigorous interview and micro teaching session at The WEA Omega Centre in Somerstown, Portsmouth, the outcome of which…
