The Blog

I am a Brand Ambassador for the Portable Painter watercolour palettes, and they have just released a DISCOUNT CODE for anyone wanting to...

I suspect that you will have used a viewfinder of some kind or another to help you to choose your view and isolate your subject. Perhaps...

It is so easy to paint a boring picture! I’m sure we all have failed paintings tucked away somewhere that just didn’t work out right....

Traditionally the end of one year and the beginning of the next is a time for looking back, reminiscing, mulling over what you did, saw...

I’ve been playing around with ways to use the Portable Painter palette so that I can use it for gouache outdoors. The problem has always...

I was chatting with Donna yesterday about the various art movements through history. This came about because we have recently visited the...

I’m in Paris and cruising down the river Seine on what equates to a bus, but on water. This bus, called the Batobus, sails along a...

I’d like to introduce you to two of my favourite watercolour/gouache landscape sketchers who have inspired and helped me on my painting...

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 have to admit that I never used a sketchbook when I was first learning to paint. I would find a photo of something I wanted to paint,...

For a couple of years I abandoned watercolour painting entirely as I was concentrating on my oils, but then I rediscovered the thrill of...

I don’t know about you but I have a lot of art books! I love them and refer to them often for ideas and help. But this Christmas I was...

I was asked a few days ago by a reader of this blog if I could share the colours I use on my palette and how I make some of the colour...

Here are three really interesting ways to find new subjects in the landscape. Have you ever wandered around looking for something to...

Here’s one simple idea for an ultra-lightweight plein air sketching kit. I recently took just these few items with me as I travelled...

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

I have just returned from tutoring on a painting holiday in the beautiful Cotswolds in the UK. The area is full of quaint old villages,...

I recently came across this blog which features sketches and often equally colorful stories behind the scenes by 100 invited artists in...

Here’s a quick and easy way of painting a picture or capturing a moment in a sketch. I saw these paintings hanging in a hotel lobby and...