What leads me to paint? In painting magic can happen.
My grandfather painted, my mother went to art school, worked in studios in a London fashion house before the war and was a good amateur watercolour painter. I've always painted and drawn but was forced, after art college, to teach. I lasted a year in full-time education and then returned home to my parents to teach supply and to develop my sculpture, which I had studied at college. At the same time it was necessary to earn a living. On 1st January 1976 I bought, with my mothers help, a run down gallery and art shop. I really was on a steep learning curve. I spent the first six months learning more and working harder than ever before. At the end I had learnt the basics of framing, I still do all my own framing.
 

I had by then married and we had two lovely girls that I painted time and time again. We decided to move to Cornwall so I could paint. "Things happen" as my children say and I am now living on my own and have my children with me every other week. This is probably the ideal for a painter as I can be as selfish and curmudgeonly with my time one week and be brought back into the real world the next. I also have two very stern critics.
In the last two years I have painted full-time with a little restoring for cash flow. I find I am trying to create the atmosphere of where I paint and will reject miles of countryside until somewhere talks to me. A painting is finished when it shows the effects of light, time and weather. I try not to analyse the extra something I can sometimes put in a painting, which is more than the subject. I am finding, almost against my will, that my painting is becoming more abstract. I am always interested to see what will happen when I start a new painting, they don't always behave.

Click on any of the icons to see a larger image and information.