My Painting Process

A finished painting is the result of a journey involving many twists and turns.

I generally carry a sketchbook and pencil with me when travelling or out on a walk. Most of my paintings can be sourced back to one or more of these sketchbook drawings.

My work is generally a response to place. Yet a place is so much more than just what it looks like. How does a place make me feel? What is on the surface? What is under the surface? Painting offers me the creative freedom to explore beyond what can be seen by the eye, to discern the unseen, the intangibles and the possibilities of a place. The multi-layers that lie under surface level vistas, as well as the initial visual reflections. I will often reference the history of a place. What has happened and what is happening in a place? My work allows me to even envisage its potential future.

In his wildly imaginative description of England in The Last Battle, C.S.Lewis wrote:
“…you are now looking at the England within England, the real England just as this is the real Narnia. And in that inner England no good thing is destroyed.”
Perhaps I am also looking for the within, the real, the inner.

My current practice resists setting a determined course to a precise visual destination. Instead, working prayerfully and imaginatively, I seek to enjoy the colours and textures of the paint itself, in the same way as a musician is drawn to sounds, and a poet loves the rhythm and shapes of words. Embracing creative detours, unexpected turns and impulsive directional decisions, I am conscious that I’m creating something utterly unique. Something that’s never been seen before.

How long?
More often than not, my paintings take weeks, usually months, and sometimes even years. At any one time, I have a few paintings on the go.

The three images below show the progress of my painting “Further In” from one of the initial drawings, early stages in studio, to finished framed painting.

I am fortunate to have a studio I share with my artist wife in our garden. At the end of a day of painting in the studio, I usually take the work off the easel, carry it into the house, and mount the unfinished painting on a wall inside. This gives me a chance to really stand back from the work, and see it with fresh eyes, perhaps over a few days.