‘High White Fen’ 80 x 40 on Cradled Board (Detail ‘High White Fen’) Detail ‘ High White Fen’ If someone told you that a painting of a landscape was a close recording of a particular place or location, you would accept their version of events. If they told you it was non representational, but an evocation of feelings, memories and ideas you might accept their argument. If they told you it was just pigment applied on a flat surface with an assortment of tools and brushes the tr

‘Westmoor’ 100 x 150 x 4cm ‘Westmoor’ (Detail) The Fens around Ely come to life with colour at this time of year. The intense yellow of the rapeseed provides a complementary contrast to the cool blues and soft greys of the Summer Cambridgeshire skies. This landscape painting in acrylic follows the traditional conventions of representation and uses the framing device of the ‘window on the world’. The twin furrows of the tractor and the ever diminishing telegraph poles lead the

‘Stone & Water’ Oil and Cold Wax on 80 x 80 cm canvas ‘Stone & Water’ Oil and Cold Wax on 80 x 80 cm canvas (detail) This is a cold wax mixed media painting on a high quality canvas frame. It is based on my experience of the Fenland landscape. It is not a visual record of a specific place, or a celebration of a well known structure or familiar location. I am interested in surfaces and textures and the way materials can be combined to create tactile qualities. Cold wax can be

‘A Kind of Grief’ Oil and Cold Wax on 80 x 80 cm canvas ‘A Kind of Grief’ Oil and Cold Wax on 80 x 80 cm canvas (Detail) This is a cold wax mixed media painting on a high quality canvas frame. It is based on my recent artist residency in the New Forest in Hampshire. I spent a number of days walking amongst the trees and gathering information for a series of paintings through drawing and photography; I wanted to absorb the sights and sounds of the trees in the forest and find

Acrylic on Canvas 150 x 100 cm Detail This is a large acrylic work exploring the possibility of creating the illusion of movement in painting. I am always in two minds about using acrylic and I often find myself switching to oil paints after a period of time. (Please note, you can make the change if the oil paint layer is applied after the acrylic, not the other way around). To be accurate, you can break the rules and add acrylic to an oil base but the results can be unpredic

100 x 150 cm Acrylic on Canvas 100 x 150 cm Acrylic on Canvas (detail) A day in the life of a large-scale abstract painting. This is the third day on this particular piece and I’m really enjoying the process of making marks. I’m trying to achieve a sense of energy, dynamism, and optimism. Sweeping arcs of translucent color seem to be the way forward using a broad range of arm and hand movements There is no room for hesitation or excessive deliberation in this approach. As a

‘Patchwork’ 40 x 51 cm Acrylic on 300 gsm paper ‘Patchwork’ Detail Language is a wonderful invention, the moment we are presented with a new word, meanings shift and change, conjuring a world of ideas and thoughts. This painting is a patchwork of shapes inspired by the work of the Swiss artist Paul Klee. It uses geometric shapes, intense tonal contrast and iridescent highlights. There is a suggestion of land enclosures, rivers, lakes and isolated dwellings. There is also a st

‘Walking on Sunset’ Acrylic on Paper ‘Walking on Sunset’ Detail This is one of a series of acrylic paintings on hand made 300 gsm paper and I’m enjoying the immediacy of working on this high quality textured surface. The shapes and colours of the painting show exuberance and optimism and a delight in the here and now. The curved and straight lines celebrate visual contrast and compositional balance. There is a flowing movement from left to right across the picture plane, whic

Capturing the vitality and richness of oil paint in acrylics is a challenge. Oil paints have a natural, organic quality that is generally absent from the synthetic neutrality of acrylic paints. The way to recreate the inherent liveliness and immediacy of oil is to make liberal use of different mediums and gels. In the final stages of a painting, I am still making compositional adjustments and decisions and I am prepared to carry out radical alterations if it isn’t working. An

As Winter relentlessly approaches I return to the world of fully saturated colour to reprise the warmth and light of the sun. Colour applied with rollers offers liberation from the tyranny and constraint of a hand/brush-based approach to the manipulation of paint. The speed and flow associated with the use of rollers accelerate execution and thinking, qualities that are often missing from a carefully controlled ‘painterly’ style. #painting #abstractart #Art #artist #colour #

Here is something a little out of the ordinary, definitely not my usual offering, but I thought I might share this with you. I created this video with my daughter, it was recorded two years ago on a handheld mobile phone; so all credit to her directorial and editing skills. I put down the audio track in the house because here in the Fenlands it is always windy and you wouldn’t have heard a single note. Did I hear someone say that would have been a wiser option? 🙂 For those w

This is an acrylic painting on a 100 x 100 x 4 cm canvas. I based it on the landscape of Roswell Pits, an 8-hectare nature reserve near the city of Ely in the Cambridgeshire Fenlands. It may surprise you to see me working with acrylics as I normally use a range of media including oil paints and cold wax, which I find more expressive. The inherent ‘flatness’ of acrylic paint can be an obstacle to more creative explorations of the natural landscape, but the medium has definitel

Lisbon is a city full of beautiful ornate buildings displaying rich architectural details and often with highly decorative tiled surfaces. This large scale photograph is a montage of a selection of images taken earlier this year in and includes buildings located on the main avenues leading down to the Alfama district. #buildings #photographer #collage #photography #lisbon #portugal #Art #artist #photomontage

This is a painting about music, rhythm and the rich aural textures and the timbre of sound. The chords and colours of the painting reflect my interest in the acoustic guitar, its tonal range and versatility. The curved and straight lines found in the shape and structure of the instrument are used to provide contrast and compositional harmony. Elements of Cubism are evident in the multi-faceted viewpoints and the intersection of foreground and background spaces. ‘Counterpoint’

‘Half Moon’ 60 x 60 x 4 cm on Canvas My painting ‘Half Moon’, currently on exhibition at the Babylon Gallery in Ely has just been bought by a collector. This is a highly textured mixed media painting using cold wax, oil, bitumen and a wide assortment of mark making tools. The exhibition is open until 6th September and I hope you will get a chance to visit if you are in the area. My daughter, Louisa also has a painting in the Summer Open exhibition called ‘Modern Times’. ‘Mode

‘Sienna’s World’ Anglesey Abbey ‘Christina’s World’ Andrew Wyeth The black and white photograph of my granddaughter was taken at Anglesey Abbey in Cambridgeshire. The painting below, which many of you will be very familiar with, set in the coastal landscape of Maine was created by the American artist Andrew Wyeth. Wyeth’s painting is a penetrating psychological portrait and a vivid representation of the inner world of Christina Olson who, because of a muscle degenerative di

‘Neu Wald’ This highly textured painting on a solid oak block has just been sold to a collector in Scotland. Oak has a very dense grain and provides a resilient surface for the cold wax process. A variety of tools can be used with confidence to create a range of natural textures and fine surface markings. Multiple layers of wax have been used to generate the illusion of depth and translucency. ‘Neu Wald’ (detail) #painting #gold #petercorr #buyartformyoffice #beautifulart #ge

I have just been working on a commission based on one of my recent New Forest paintings. It has taken over two months from start to completion and I am genuinely pleased with final outcome. For those of you who have worked on a commission before you will know that they can sometimes be problematic. I think it is extremely important to be clear about the nature of the painting process and to communicate this through discussion with the other party. Each painting is inevitably

‘Arcadia’ by Peter Corr 122 x 92cm This is a large oil painting on a 122 x 92 cm canvas. It is semi abstract and expressionistic in terms of technique and approach. It is however, based indirectly on nature and more specifically on the hedgerows of the fenland in East Anglia. Trees, brambles and woody shrubs such as hawthorn, blackthorn and field maple create an exuberant entanglement of chaotic growth. The material and paint I have used is applied with a variety of tools inc

‘Till’ by Peter Corr 60 x 60 cm The Fenlands are highly productive agricultural land and at this time of year, farmers can be seen ploughing and tilling the earth in readiness for the next year. The tilling blades comb the topsoil, mixing and aerating as they are dragged across the fields. I have used plaster, oil and cold wax medium, alternately scoring and layering the materials to recreate the furrowed surface. The late evening light at this time of year has a warm soft gl