Some Roses

I've always loved flower paintings. Perhaps it's because they have a delicacy that suggests the transience of things. It's almost as if they are made from something that's not quite physical. These two small pictures are life-size and it was a pleasure to paint them

White Rose, 2017, oil on MDF, 22.75 x 10cm

Pink Rose, 2017, oil on MDF, 22.75 x 10cm

Gracia and Louise

This charcoal drawing is my first double portrait. The sitters are Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison. Gracialoiuse. 

Gracia and Louise work together on most of their projects, so I thought it was a good idea to have them on the same paper. I worked on this for some time, constantly making decisions and rubbing bits out. I like unfinished drawings, because people are a work in progress and the unfinished state of the image reflects the same condition as a human being.

They both sat so still, and posed one at a time, as the pics show. Neither Gracia nor Louise had sat for a portrait before, so it was a nice experience for all of us.

Gracia and Louise, 2017, charcoal and pastel on paper, 53 x 70 cm

Drawing Louise

Gracia sitting still.

Drawing Gracia

Tools of trade

Night Glow

Night Glow, 2017, oil on wood, 50 x 50 cm

This is a variation on one of my earlier paintings, The Still of the Night. I was aiming at making the white horse into a kind of glow, like the moonlight; perhaps aspiring to create an apparition that slightly removes the scene from being just a horse in a field at night.

Journey

Journey, 2017, oil on canvas, 61.5 x 92 cm

This painting continues my interest in light as the main subject matter within a picture. At first I had the horizon as a straight edge but I think that by bending it slightly it creates a sense of moving across, and towards, eternity. Most of the stars are painted with two or three dots of colour and occasionally only with one colour. But colour vibrates more when there is an interplay between them, acting in the same way as chords on a guitar.