Skip to main content

Featured Post

What does January mean?

People said

 Feedback is so important. Here is some of the feedback I have received .






Popular posts from this blog

What does January mean?

  I read this through and found it very self-absorbed. However, it is honest and maybe sometimes people like to read other people’s self-reflections, especially when those reflections are about struggle. So, I apologise for starting the year with a reflection about me but here it is.   What does January mean? Well, to so many of us it means a new start, it feels impossible to escape that. Written bold in the digits of 2026 is the possibility of casting off 2025, and maybe more than that and starting afresh. I have to say as an artist who is a Christian my hope is the possibility of being a new creation in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17, So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new!) So goodbye 2025 and everything that has gone before, hello 2026. Or maybe hello today. It is not enough to step away from the past even if the past was pretty good, we have to live today, with an eye on the future. I have said thi...
Read more

Painting in focus, The Butter Mart

The painting in focus is meant to give people a chance to buy a favourite painting, print of card at a special deal price. Having thought about it, one week is very tight for people to decide and then buy. Therefore, I feel a month will be fair. Also, I did not make it totally clear last week that this is on a first come first served basis; once the stock I have is gone, prices will inevitably change. Last week I set out plans for the painting in focus and I said I would start with original paintings I still own.  This just proves I can’t keep to my own rules because this week the painting in focus has been sold!  It is a painting that was done quite a few years ago, but due to its subject and dramatic lighting it has remained a popular print. The Buttermart in Barnard castle has a rich history from when and why it was built to its gunshot holes in the weather cock. But, like all long-lived buildings it has become an iconic feature of Barnard castle. There are three prints...
Read more

As we come to the end of 2025 the realisation that maybe a painting is more special than a photograph in our super digital world.

It has been years since I have painted a portrait and I have to say it was with trepidation that I accepted a commission to paint this attractive couple. But from beginning to end it has been a delight. The commission was for a Christmas present and has been given, received and loved so I can share my last piece of work for 2025.  Working on this and seeing it received with such joy and love, made me ponder on the nature of an oil painting. It is not a direct replica of the person or image, it is never going to carry the same near perfection of a photograph but it has something more authentic. It has the work that shows someone spent time contemplating this person, object or place. It is the representation of the spirit of the person, or place. I might be changed to enhance the feeling of time or mood, to pop in what is important and leave out what really does not matter. I have spent years wondering why work so hard painting a landscape from a photo when after all the photo is the...
Read more