Things I’ve Noticed…
For a long time, I called this journal Studio Notes — a place to share glimpses into my painting process and the stories behind my work.
Over time, I realised that the beginnings of my paintings often happen long before I enter the studio. They begin with noticing: a shift in light, the colour of a field, the sound of birdsong, the texture of a hedgerow, or a fleeting moment in the landscape.
This is a place to gather those observations — the small things that catch my attention and, sometimes, find their way into a painting.
I’d love for you to join the conversation — if something here sparks a thought, makes you smile, or inspires an idea, drop me a comment! It’s always a joy to hear from fellow creative adventurers.
So…What Do You Do?
We’ve all been there. You meet someone new, polite conversation begins, and then the question arrives:
“So, what do you do?”
These days, I can just about manage to say, without tripping over the words, “I’m an artist.”
It’s taken me a while to get there, I’ll admit. Saying it out loud once felt oddly vulnerable — as though I needed to justify it, explain it, soften it somehow. Now I say it more easily, though the response is often the same:
“Oh, how lovely — you must spend all day painting.”
Working Without a Map…
Most of my paintings begin without a clear destination.
I might start with a remembered place, a particular quality of light, or the feeling of weather moving through a landscape — but rarely with a fixed image in mind. Over the years, I’ve learned that not knowing where a piece is going isn’t a problem to be solved. It’s a space to work within.