I’m still focussing on playing around in my sketchbook, but despite my best intentions I didn’t even manage to finish this little Barcelona sketch:

It’s not far from finished – just some figures and cafe furniture to add beneath the umbrellas and, in the foreground, a figure sat on one the many permanently fixed chairs.

I just some old masking fluid to mask out the tree trunks but I think the fluid may have gone off! It’s an old bottle that I’ve had for years but when I came to remove it, it left a strange green residue that had managed to seep into the paper. I was able to remove most of this by scratching it out the tip of a scalpel but in doing this, it really damaged the paper!

I quite liked much of the study so far though so was keen to try to rescue this one! The trees will remain largely unpainted, just the odd shadow to add falling across them here and there.

Hopefully I’ll get to finish this one off over the coming weekend.

I hope that everyone’s plans for the festive season are progressing in a nice and orderly fashion!

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Well. It’s been staring at me for a few weeks now and my feelings towards it have been plummeting with every glance!

I felt that the best thing to do with it, prior to throwing it out, would be to turn it over, fold it in half and use the back of it to play around a little.

There’s been some snow around in the UK of late and I think this steered me towards some of my favourite snowy watercolour scenes.

My whole watercolour renaissance – many many years ago now – was triggered by being introduced to the work of Edward Seago. I loved (and still do!) the directness of his paintings and their wonderful economy.

Taking out my favourite Seago book:

I flipped to a couple of my favourite snow scenes. I painted these without any preliminary sketching out – just purely by observing his paintings and letting myself get lost in the wonderful simplicity and total brilliance of his paintings.

After my recent dips in both form and enthusiasm it was great to feel more focussed and engaged with the process of painting again.

As ever, I always feel that these returns to where it all began – even though they’re far less frequent than they used to be – still serve an important purpose. On this occasion, it was great to pay homage once again to the brilliance of Seago, and also to go some way to recapturing and possibly reigniting that spark of what I love about painting that has felt sadly absent for some time now.

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Here’s a quick A5 sketch, done in my A4 sketchbook.

The subject is one that I revisited from a couple of years ago when I was painting a lot of trees in preparation for a tree themed exhibition.

It’s only as I’m writing this that I thought to dig out my first sketch:

This sketch ended up being mounted, framed and sold before I took any better photos of it.

And the two together for comparison:

I like them both, but at the moment, the most important thing is how much I enjoyed the physical act of painting. It was great to get my paints wet, to mix on the palette and on the page and to see the colours mix and mingle.

It’s early days but after quite a while of feeling in the doldrums about painting, I think that there are definitely some green shoots of hope that, fingers crossed, may well flourish again!

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Unfortunately, my enthusiasm didn’t translate hi particularly well!

Admittedly, this is a poor photo, taken when the paper was still damp and cockled, but even these extenuating circumstances don’t make up for what is a disappointing result.

It’s sometimes a struggle when your heart just isn’t in it, and that’s how I feel about my painting at the moment. I know that this is partly due to pressures elsewhere in life but in the past, my painting has been a kind of outlet or release valve. At the moment, however, it feels much more of a burdensome chore – which feels like such a terrible thing to say about a pursuit that I love so much.

Not sure what’s going to come next, but my instinct is telling me to seek refuge in my sketchbooks; to work a little smaller, a little faster, hopefully more freely and without any sense of expectation.

This is something that has worked for me in the past, so I have to have faith that it will be helpful once again!

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I think these conditions also blighted our recent trip to Paris, when aside from about half an hour, the weather was unremittingly grey.

I’m not sure whether these odd conditions are related to the cause, or just a coincidence, but I’ve also been experiencing a bit of anti-painting gloom!

To be honest, I just really haven’t felt in the mood, and that’s really rare for me. Even when I’m going through a thin patch I’ve normally managed to muster something up!

As easy and convenient it would be to blame this on the weather, I think there are other, more significant factors at play too. Uppermost in this list is work. It’s fair to say that my work is tough at the moment and it’s having a knock on effect to my painting. This isn’t intended as a whinge, but I’ve been wrestling with it a little of late and am gradually accepting that it’s ok to cut oneself some slack every now and then.

Even so, I still needed to have something to share, and something to aim for when I do feel in the mood to paint!

So here’s a quick preparatory sketch of what I think may be coming next.

It’s based on a view in Paris. On a grey day! I have a few ideas on how to treat this, but as I’m still not 100% sure on it yet I haven’t started it (but am already looking forward to when I do!)

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I had hoped that the weather was going to be that kind of delightful autumnal brightness that would enable me to capture lots of inspiring references.

Instead, the weather was unremittingly grey until 30 minutes before our taxi was due to pick us up from our hotel! Fortunately, we were staying really centrally, so we made a dash down the road to le pont neuf to capture the sun on the Seine.

This painting is based on the view that greeted us as we arrived at the bridge:

It’s not one of finest by any means (which is always disappointing!) but it was good to return home full of enthusiasm to paint and to get something down on paper!

It’s possible that this may be the first of a few paintings based on the references I got as I crossed the bridge – and hopefully I may be able to muster up something better than this effort!

In the meantime, a bientot!

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Pictured below are a few complementary copies from French publishers Ginkgo Editeurs of their recent translation of The Main Audience by Karel Polacek – featuring on its cover my watercolour painting!

I’m indebted to the publishers for considering my work and to Kenneth Field / Rail Archive Stephenson that own the copyright to the image that inspired my painting, who gave their permission and approval for this little venture.

I must confess that I feel very proud to have my work on the cover of a book!

I had hoped that the weather would have been as kind to us as the last time we were here – which was about 8 years ago to the day. Sadly it’s a little overcast so not great for capturing the kind of references that I most like to work from, but the chance of pace and scenery is proving to be an absolute tonic!

Here’s a picture from our last visit that isn’t really paintable – but has a quintessential feel to it!

Until the next time, au revoir et bon soirée!

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Well, this is the same painting but with the other three quarters finished, and what feels like my first interior for quite some time!

The view is of the cafe area of the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts (ACCA) at the University of Sussex.

It’s a fabulous building, inside and out. It was designed by the brilliant modernist architect, Basil Spence, who designed the ACCA along with many of the university’s original buildings.

I particularly love this space. When the sun comes round in the morning the light floods into the space, bouncing off the wooden table tops, chairs and the terracotta coloured floor tiles. The floor to ceiling window frames, and angular legs of the tables and chairs send shadows strafing across the floor in all directions creating wonderfully strong geometric patterns.

This scene was early in the morning, well before the morning rush when there were just a few early birds getting their morning caffeine hit.

As a painting, I’m not sure that it stands up to the closest scrutiny, for a lot of reasons, but I think that it does capture that sense of light and scattering shadows that I really associate with this space.

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We were fortunate to hit the lane just as the sun broke through the clouds casting some lovely late afternoon long shadows.

I painted this largely as a means of just trying to ‘keep my brushes moving’ as I’m struggling to dedicate as much time to my painting as I would like.

My expectations then were quite low, so I was pleasantly surprised with how this turned out. It’s definitely an evocative reminder of our afternoon walk in Stanmer Park.

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I was delighted then to receive confirmation from one of the top restaurants in Uruguay, La Huella Parador, that I had their approval and permission to share this painting, based on a photograph from their Instagram account:

This kitchen scene features the restaurant’s chef Vanessa Gonzalez and sous chef Elena Nieves busy at work in their kitchen.

I was really pleased with how this painting turned out. It’s largely monochromatic but I think that the touches of colour, the red of the apron, the blue of the headscarf and a few flesh tones here and there, combined with some strong contrasts help create visual interest and impact.

I was so pleased to get the permission to share this that I even made a rare foray into creating a short reel:

I think it’s been quite a while since I’ve done an interior painting so it’s nice that this one turned out as well as it did!

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