Dahlias, 8” x 8” oil on board, painted from life.

The autumn light was really making the gardens come to life the other day. I’ve never been drawn to paint buildings til recently but in changing light they are far from static ...sounds weird but they have character and features just like pets or flowers do...and hidden movement from the people within!

Newbold Terrace from Archery Lawn, Jephson Gardens. I’ve eyed this building before but it had never looked so dramatic with the autumn light hitting it low, the moody blue sky behind and the 2 yellow trees still just hanging onto their leaves.

Fellow artist @Ednashart and I are teaming up to host regular Plein Air Meet Ups in and around Leamington Spa. Here we are ready to start painting ‘The Bandstand’ next to ‘The Pumprooms’

2 ladies spotted each other across the train tracks- and a full blown screaming match ensued. When I saw these 2 vivid trees screaming for attention across the river from each other it was those ladies that I remembered!

I’ve had 2 attempts at this tree now!  It’s not often I work on something for more than 2 sessions but it was quite refreshing to be working on canvas and able to evolve the work and think about my next move while one layer dried. 

I am told that when I was very little I had a knitted dog toy...an old lady bent down to me in my pushchair and said: “Is that your spotty dog”?  “NO, I replied, IT’S DALMATION !”

Flowers growing in the garden of our local pub...many a happy hour spent having a ‘tea-timer’ in there!! The photo at the bottom shows the colours on my palette, the premixed colours for each element and the brushes used.

I just had to paint one of the 25 amazing Agapanthus that grew in my garden this year! And to celebrate their magnificence I had to buy (yet another) glass jug!

PALS - regular ‘Plein Air’ Painting Meet Ups in and around Leamington Spa.

I loved all the dynamic lines and interesting shapes in this composition of ‘The Glasshouse’. Such a great event hosted by @warwickshireopenstudios. Over 100 artists took part - such a lovely atmosphere in our local park.

Adding a different dimension by combining painting and sketching in one image. Hibiscus from my garden, bottle ‘acquired’ from a restaurant in Spain recently 🤫

I took the photo of this lily pond 4 years ago looking into a fish pool on holiday in Majorca - the kids were fascinated by it too and would spend hours squatting next to it catching tadpoles!

I’m really enjoying using these coarse, firm ‘Silver Briston’ brushes.  Its great when subject matter, knowledge & technique all start to come together and your vision for the painting and the reality become one.

I realised that all of my jug paintings have the handle on the rhs! ...as a right-handed person it looks kind of awkward and uninviting to see a jug with its handle on the left- So this painting is for all you ‘lefties’ out there!!

I was asked recently ‘why put the background in last- Well...the background is a second chance to form the shape only in the negative sense- so you get to reform your positive shapes by chopping into them and around them.

I was really tempted to use that bright, light green in the bottom middle as my background colour, but I restrained myself! I like it on the dark background- it’s quite sophisticated and allows the glass jug to glow!

I’m doing these little colour swatches to show students the number of mixes required for each element of the painting.
I like to premix my colours with a palette knife on a glass palette.

A miniature! The dogs head here is about the size of my finger tip in real life so quite fiddly to paint loosely! The paint swatches show all the premixed colours that went into painting the animal alone- just the 18!

Working ‘alla prima’ in oil paint. Focussing on leaving bits of the under-painting peeking through. Looing at ways of applying the paint in a dynamic and interesting way: focusing on colour, brushwork and composition.