From the studio

‘For his fascinating series “Favorites” (2013-2015), German artist Jan-Hendrik Pelz asked 66 artists to tell him their favorite film and give an arbitrary series of numbers as a time code. He then stopped the films at the relevant point and converted the resulting unforeseeable stills into oil paintings.’ (Extract from www.onartandasthetics.com) Below are some more…

For my painting classes on Wednesday this week, I presented students with a range of postcard sized pieces of canvas, board and papers to test out and compare. I feel that finding the right surface to paint on is so important. A bad painter might well be right to blame their tools! Apart from testing…

I had a lovely day today in the studio with my painting students. For both sessions, I delivered a lesson about investigating Impressionist mark making. It was designed to encourage students to consider their own mark making moving forward. If you fancy a go yourself, here’s an overview of the session. Part 1: Name the…

I’ve started listening to the excellent BBC Radio 4 series, ‘Moving Pictures’. During each episode, experts talk about one artwork, in detail, for thirty minutes. They also provide you with a link to a high resolution image of the artwork for you to look at whilst they describe it. I had a thought though; how…

The subject matter for my paintings over the past few years has been the photographs on my phone storage. I use them to revisit and reconnect with some of the fleeting moments I’ve snapshotted for some reason or another. Our photo-streams have become a sort of visual DNA of our lives and what makes us…

I’ve just delivered two painting classes in the studio, inspired by the Francis Bacon triptych portraits I saw recently at the National Portrait Gallery. I’ve included some photographs from the exhibition below, followed by a few links to Bacon and Soho things I’ve enjoyed watching in the past few days and finally, some of the…