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A Painting's Journey

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A Painting's Journey

Deciding to rework a painting can often be seen as taking a backward step. But following your intuition and listening to your guiding inner voice is essential. Until you LOVE your paintings - they are not finished.

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SHOULD You Use A Sketchbook?

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SHOULD You Use A Sketchbook?

“How can you call yourself an Artist if you don’t have a sketchbook?” Well, I explore my ideas in the process of my paintings on the canvas. I love trying this and that right there on the canvas. And I love that these explorations become part of the painting and are embedded in the surface.

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Finishing Again

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Finishing Again

How do you know when you’re finished is one of THE most frequently asked questions, and probably the most difficult to answer. Well, you just know – you know? How do I go about deciding that perhaps… maybe it’s possibly… quite probably finished or…. almost done – nearly?

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BIG Moves

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BIG Moves

Making big moves towards the end of a painting requires courage. Watch as I talk you through why I needed to change this painting, and how I got brave enough to do it.

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From Start to Finish - in a nutshell

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From Start to Finish - in a nutshell

Someone asked me to explain my process. The clock was ticking, we were closing in on the hour and that’s a big question. So I summed it up by saying “I add, add, add and then I start seeing shapes, decide what the paintings going to be about and then edit.” If only it was that simple…

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Other People's Opinions

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How to be strong and resolute in the face of unwanted opinions. Asking the right people and asking the right questions will help us move forward with our painting and not be steered off course in our painting journey.

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Building Layers with Mixed Media

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Building Layers with Mixed Media

How do you integrate drawing and painting techniques in your artwork? Watch how I vary wet and dry media with differences in types of paint application. Working in this way holds my interest in the process and delivers variety to work with going forward.

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How To Catch The Viewer's Eye?

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How To Catch The Viewer's Eye?

How do we get the viewer to notice our work? What makes us look twice at something? Knowing how to attract the viewers eye helps us to make more powerful Art.

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Opposites & Aliens

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Opposites & Aliens

When I paint I ask myself a series of questions. My number 1 question is: What is the Opposite of...? Finding a balance between Opposites and Relationships delivers harmony and interest in your work. Watch the video as I demonstrate using one of my favourite paintings.

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How to Start a Painting

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How to Start a Painting

Some people agonize over starting their paintings, which is a shame really because it’s like setting off on an adventure – but the best sort of adventure. You don’t have to scale heights, get wet, lost or hungry, you don’t even have to leave home. But you ARE venturing into the unknown with very little idea of what will result from the experience.

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Photo Transfers

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Learn how to do Photo Transfers.

Materials used: Heavy Gel Medium onto Laserjet Photocopy on photocopying paper

Then Soft Gel Gloss to stick the Photo-skin to the painting surface.

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Questions to ask...

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Finishing a Painting II

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Finishing a Painting II

Follow the final moves as I bring this mixedmedia painting to it’s finished state. This painting integrates photocopied images with paint and collage.

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Finishing a Painting

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Finishing a Painting

Watch the finishing stage of this mixed media painting with photo collage. In this video I demonstrate how I finished the painting, analysed what it needed and made final changes.

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Sealing & Varnishing

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Sealing & Varnishing

Follow my process as I demonstrate sealing and varnishing an acrylic mixedmedia painting to get a lovely soft satin finish.

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Tips to Title Your Painting

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Tips to Title Your Painting

Now it’s time to carefully sign my name in the bottom right corner, lay down an isolation coat, a couple of coats of varnish and ….. drumroll please, GIVE IT A TITLE. The signing and finishing coats are simple, consider them done! But the title – ugh. My brain slumps in my head, solitary dying sparks fizzle – I’ve got nothing. Not a clue or even a microscopic gem of an idea. NOTHING!!

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How To Create Irresistable Texture in Your Painting

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Arriving at the final destination so soon in a painting’s journey deprives it of a history and depth in character which only a more lengthy process will give. A painting that is cut short of this process has a ‘thinness’ or a flat feel about it. What you see on the surface is all there is. When a painting has texture it delivers so much more and can be irresistible when the viewer moves in close.

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10 Tips for Painting BIG

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10 Tips for Painting BIG

Recently I have started 4 new paintings. These babies are BIG!! Well, they’re the biggest paintings I‘ve ever done. Initially I was a little nervous about starting them as this was foreign territory. I tried not to dwell on the volume of expensive paint I was going to consume, so to quell that nagging fear I ordered another bucket of gesso. That would get me started. I bought myself a couple of wider bigger brushes and I bought a squeegee so I could move the paint around the canvas quickly with one swoop. I was concerned with economy & efficiency you see.

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Gels & Mediums - What I Use

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Gels & Mediums - What I Use

In between then and 2017 when I started painting again some bright spark came up with the idea of adding thick clear acrylic ie. colourless paint to Acrylic paint so that it would behave a little more like oil paint. And so, Gels and Mediums were born.

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How to Mount Works on Paper onto a Cradled Panel

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How to Mount Works on Paper onto a Cradled Panel

This week I’m not going to inspire you, challenge you or even make you chuckle. I’m going to tell you how to take a work on paper and get it on the wall without spending a ton of money at the framers, and still achieving a result that looks like quality.