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Welcome

Thank you for visiting my website. This home page is a blog where you can see my recent artworks, exhibitions, and musings. You can browse here safely. There is no “buy now” button. No pressure. But if you really like something you see here, please contact me. I can post paintings to you. If you prefer to see before you buy, I can reserve paintings until you can view them (please phone me on 01287 643030).

Visits to my rather untidy home studio are by appointment only. I prefer to carry on being careful, even when allowed to be not so careful… People who buy my paintings are those who share my love of art and of North Yorkshire: its coast, woodlands and moors. My approach to painting is primarily contemplative, naturalistic yet stylised, looking for the beauty and peace one experiences when immersed in Nature.

You can see my work in a few galleries in North Yorkshire. Please see the “Galleries & Exhibitions” page, and check their details for opening days and times.

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Garden Chair II: Nasturtium Invasion

A black and white painting of a corner of my little garden. Nasturtium growing through and over a garden chair, near a low drystone wall.

I love nasturtium, its cheerful flowers in yellow, red and orange, its leaves and flowers that can be eaten in salads, its immature seeds that can be pickled as false capers, or left to drop on the ground so that the following Spring new plants will grow. A corner of my little garden in early Autumn…

I cannot remember painting exclusively in black and white. I usually start a painting in monochrome to establish the composition; I think of it as the structure, the bones of a painting, and therefore I like to use white over black. Often that underpainting is lost under the layers of colour, but in my last painting (Garden Chair: Rose, Tomato & Passiflora), I used transparent layers of oil colours so that the structure showed through. And so from that to this, a memory of Autumn as a response to the darkest and shortest days of the year.

a rose growing through a garden chair, with a tomato plant on the chair, and passiflora climbing up from below.

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Thank you to all of you who bought one of my calendars (or more!). It has made a huge difference to me, as it has kept the wolf away from my door.

In case you forgot to order a copy, or you discover that no one bought you a calendar this year, I have 2 calendars left, and there are also a few copies at Wold Pottery gallery in Loftus, and at Inspired by gallery in Danby.
Thank you again for supporting an independent artist!

A4 Calendar. £12.50

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Calendar update.

After a small delay, I now have calendars in stock, so I’m starting to post calendars to those who have reserved one (I’ll email or message to confirm when posted). If you would like to order one, please contact me. Thank you.

2022 wall calendar, A4, £12.50 each. Free UK delivery if you order in October!

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Calendar 2022.

Some of you have asked me, so… yes!
I will publish a 2022 Calendar.
Last year was a strange year(!), my calendars were printed in November, and sold out by early December. I will get them (a bit) earlier this year (hopefully).
Please message/email/phone me to let me know if you’d like one (or more!) and I’ll reserve them and post them to you in October if you don’t live locally. Thank you.

2022 Calendar. A4 size. Portrait format, bound with a wire spiral. One page per month. £12.50 per calendar. Postage within the UK: Free if you order before the end of October! (after October: £2.50 for 1 or 2 calendars). Postage to the EU: £5.85 (+ fees, see below); to the USA: £8; to Australia: £9.85.

PostScript. 23 September. I have now decided on the images!

(this will be the back of the calendar)

NB. If you are in the EU. From recent experience, products from the UK may be subject to fees up to 40% of the declared value, to be paid by the recipient. I am really sorry about that. Obviously it wasn’t my idea to leave the EU. I can still send you one, of course, if you really want one, but be warned that, with postage and those extra fees, this will makes it an expensive calendar. Maybe an artist in your country publishes nice calendars… If you would really like one of mine, please contact me. Thank you.

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Solstice Poppies

There is a field of red poppies, on Micklow Lane, in Loftus. It looks at its best around the Summer Solstice. I had painted it a few years ago, on square canvases. This year it was superb, and I decided to paint it again. The painting was in its early stages (I paint the bare bones, the structure, before I use colour) when a couple saw it in my studio, ad I told them it would be a field of red poppies. After they went back home, they asked me for first refusal. I said that I had just started another, quite different one, and they asked for first refusal on both. I never really know how my paintings will turn out. I establish the composition from observation of the landscape, but once colour takes over, it often is a surprise for me. So I hoped they would turn out fine…

I emailed photographs of the paintings some weeks later, when finished. And they both loved them! Today they came back “up North”, and picked up their paintings.

Now that is great, because I liked the paintings, and they liked them too; but mostly it was just brilliant because until their visit in early July, I had not met him since we were both sixteen years old, and I had never met his beautiful wife. I stayed in his parents’ house on my first visit to England when I was 12 years old, then he later spent a Summer on my parents’ farm in the South of France. That was decades ago… Old friends are wonderful, and they open the gates of shared memories, of youth and sunny summers. These Solstice paintings, with their vibrant red, are a celebration of friendship, and Summer.

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PS. 5 November. I’ve now produced greeting cards from those paintings. They are available directly from me, or through Wold Pottery gallery in Loftus.

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Summer does go quickly…

I have spent a lot of time in my garden. It earths me. So when it’s warm and sunny, I am outside with the flowers. But of course I still find time to paint. I recently finished this commission. There is a wonderful couple, who love my artwork, and also love where they live. They bought their house because of the view. A few years ago, they commissioned a painting of the view from their house, and this year they commissioned the view from an upstairs window. It was a delight to immerse myself into such a peaceful landscape.

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