The Blog

Diagonal lines bring energy and movement to any painting. Vertical and horizontal lines are stabilizing and indicate calm and peace. So...

I’m learning to not mess with my paintings. What I’m trying to do in a conscious way is to lay down a stroke of paint and then leave it...

Shadows can be tricky to paint. It’s not so much their shape, which is often clearly defined. The problem comes with mixing the right...

Claude Monet said: “To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at. When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects...

How copying can make you a better painter, faster. I suspect that all of us who love to paint want to improve, and to do so as quickly...

Here is a recent painting I did of a peak near Mont Blanc, along with the original photo. As you can see I made some changes. What drew...

How imagining the finished painting helps you get there… I’m off to paint the Matterhorn in April, and so I’ve begun to research the...

(and how to make sure yours don’t!) What is the number 1 priority for a good painting? Is it to do with colour? Or subject matter, or...

(How to breath new life into failed paintings) Everyone who paints knows about failed paintings. We all have them. And that’s quite...

I’ve always admired the amazing light effects that the Australian artist Colley Whisson achieves in his oil paintings. They seem to glow...

My last post was about Finding Your Style which is something most painters want to do. This post is about something else that most...

I spend just a few moments most days scrolling through Instagram looking at the artists that I follow, those that inspire me to make art....

I’ve just been to the wonderful new exhibition at the National Gallery in London called “After Impressionism – Inventing Modern Art”. ...

I’d like to show you one of the ways I use to create my paintings. In this example I am painting in water-mixable oils but the process...

I recently had the opportunity to go to the Museo Carmen Thyssen in Málaga, which is an art gallery showing paintings from the last few...

Have you ever had times when you were itching to paint, but you couldn’t think of anything you wanted to have a go at? Those times when...

I’ve used YouTube for a few years now, both for hosting painting course videos and for putting up videos for the general public. I’m now...

Here’s a controversial quote from the French impressionist painter Edgar Degas: “ Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the...

How to finish a plein air painting when you’ve run out of time and have to head home. Here’s a short video that may just help you to...

In the heat of the day Sometimes the simplest paintings are the most powerful. On the other hand we can mess up a strong image by...