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.
Five Things I Learned Doing A Solo Exhibition…
(in no particular order… because by the final week my brain had largely dissolved into lists, frame corners, and coffee.)
There is something quietly magical - as well as hugely stressful - about preparing for a solo exhibition.
You spend months — sometimes years — gathering ideas, experimenting, discarding, beginning again, chasing colours that refuse to behave, and trying to coax something meaningful onto the surface of paper or board. Something that you actually like…
And then, suddenly, time has run out and the work has to leave the studio.
Not just the paintings themselves, but the whole invisible ecosystem surrounding them: framing, photographing, naming, pricing, writing, promoting, hanging, packaging, labels… and approximately seven hundred tiny decisions nobody really tells you about beforehand.
Having recently navigated this particular combination of excitement, gratitude, mild panic, and logistical spreadsheetery, I thought I'd share a few things I learned along the way.
Not necessarily in order of importance.
More in order of what floated back to the surface once the dust — and bubble wrap — settled.