All the Little Things — Painting

This painting began with a walk as most of them do. A late summer evening when the chill had pushed the heat aside . The only warmth that was left was in crimson shoulders and noses. The mist descended. I began thinking about this painting with sketchbook notes and drawings.. The shapes of the plants, colours and the softness of light.  When I began painting I thought about how the path leads on to a thin track with a heart stopping drop. How I always chastise myself for walking that way when the light begins to fade. But then how...

This week I have been working on a commission and a smaller landscape as well as trying to finish a Whitby painting. The commission and smaller painting are both inspired by the moors. I was thinking about what draws me to these places; the open spaces, the moody skies and the warm colours of plants and heather. It isn't a chocolate box landscape, it is something wilder. There is a freedom in painting them. Whilst I have been painting I have been watching "Pretend it's a City" (yes, I paint mainly with music but sometimes with the telly on, maybe...

I began drawing birds at Art College. We had been set a project to make an artist's book based on whatever we liked and I very much liked Barry Hines "A Kestral for a Knave" at the time. I was in a strange stage of life where I had grown out of the small northern town where I came from but I was yet to find my feet in in this new and strange place; Edinburgh. I was reading a lot of northern literature as I liked to be transported to the comfort of the hills, yet most of it...