How Long Does It Take to Create a Painting? Fifty Hours or Fifty Years? Artists are often asked this question — it is typically the first and frequently the last. The conventional answer is that the hours spent directly on the painting might add up to a few days, weeks, or perhaps a month or two. The artist would then wisely note that, in reality, the piece in question represents the accumulated knowledge and experience of a lifetime. Both answers are true, and neither is com

Imperfection, Patina and the Painted Surface The more I paint images of the forest, the more I see trees as a cipher — a kind of encoding, a representation of something else. This painting finally declared itself to me after a few weeks of alternately applying, layering, and removing pigment. 'Natural Theatre' 120 x 100 x 4 cm Oil & Cold Wax on Canvas Painting as Excavation This is painting as extrusion or excavation — not unlike a sculptor releasing a figure embedded in a m

Cold wax is not simply a material — it is a way of working. This post describes what cold wax medium is, how it behaves in combination with oil paint, and why its particular qualities — resistance, translucency, the way it holds a mark — have made it central to my practice over many years.

Mike Tyson's remark has always struck me as unexpectedly apt for painting. You can plan a surface, intend a particular quality of light, work toward a specific resolution — and then the painting refuses. What happens next is where the real work begins.

Cubism and the Contemporary Painter I have always considered Cubism to be the key movement in the development of contemporary art — the ultimate catalyst, a clean break with tradition and a revolutionary way of seeing, interpreting, and reconstructing the material world through painting. After Cubism, there could be no return to the false comforts and certainties of representational painting. It fatally undermined conventional ways of recording what we see. For the first time

'A Stolen View' — Landscape Painting and the Question of Access I always return to the forest as a subject for painting. It is a source of limitless fascination and inspiration. I create these forest paintings primarily from memory. I do have photographs taken at various locations, but I rarely use them to complete a painting. They may offer a starting point, a way of seeing, or a particular quality of light — but ultimately a painting has to work on its own terms. Effective

After several years of working with oil and cold wax, I have come to understand the medium less as a set of techniques and more as a set of conditions. This post reflects on what those conditions are, and how they have shaped the way I think about painting.

Damien Hirst used formaldehyde; he would have been better served by an eco-friendly peat bog. 'Between Worlds' abstract Fenland painting..

'Reflections in the New Forest' — Artist Residency Work 'Reflections in the New Forest' is one of a group of paintings made during my residency in the New Forest. The title refers both to the literal reflections of trees and sky in the forest pools and streams, and to the more general quality of reflection — of looking back, of seeing the landscape in relation to memory and experience — that the residency encouraged. The Residency The New Forest residency was a period of sust

A painting inspired by the warmth and vibrancy of the Sun. For me, the shapes and colours of this work on hand made paper reflect the...