February 2021

Life in the plague. I have felt unable to get out and about to find inspiration and apart from a couple of commissions I've produced no real art since Christmas '19 – scary stuff, but we are all in the same boat, wondering what the future holds. Here on the island the heart has been ripped out of the community by the closure of all the cafe/bars but needs must I guess.

So I have been building more lighting out of metal, wood and cardboard with nice big bulbs in them!

This nightmare will end one day I'm sure, but in the meantime let's all be sensible and careful. Good luck.

September 2020

Strange days indeed. Walking down deserted streets with only wind-blown clear plastic gloves for company - could it be a painting? Nah. Not recognising people when they wear face masks is disturbing.

My gallery is open - with all precautions – but it's very quiet here. I mooch around in my studio, pulling faces in the mirror, picking things up and putting them down again, making shadow shapes on the floor and even nodding off in front of my drawing board.

However, life goes on and I have updated my website so that you lovely people who can't get to my gallery can now purchase my work from my website with free shipping throughout Europe, so there!!

It is frustrating to be unable to gain fresh inspiration for new work but there is little space left in the gallery for it and my studio is in such a mess these is precious little room to do it in. I will tidy it one day.

I will be very interested to see what my “new normal” will be like and I hope that this isn't it!

Take care, wash your hands!

March 2020

Thanks to that new kid on the block- covid19 - we are all in “lock down” here in Spain and getting to know the inside of our houses a bit too much.

However, since the gallery must be closed, I have a luxurious amount of time to spend in my studio. So I have started a project.....

A tropical landscape in miniature featuring a meandering river, an oxbow lake and a myriad of various growing forms. This is great fun, there's no rush (apart from my usual impatience) and always something more to do to keep my mind off all the possible futures.

It's frustrating that I can't get out and about, looking for inspiration, but of course I understand the reasons and share everyone's nervousness at the possible outcomes.

Being creative though, means I can lose myself in a thousand escapes – some of them even paintings – but I'm not sure if they'll ever be on sale.

Still – be careful; be safe; wash your hands!

January 2020

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I painted some fruit in a bowl – nice shapes, nice colours, nice contours, but as I painted the dimples, scars and highlights I became aware of the fact that none of it was 'natural'. 500 years ago, none of these fruits would have existed in their present form and have been selectively bred - “bio engineered” to look more appetising; more fashionable and then I thought...... uranium's natural! The sun is radioactive, cancer's natural; iodine, poisons, death; - all natural. “no-one every gets out alive!”

…. so then I thought..... I'll stick to painting what attracts me and let intelligent people and snake-oil salesmen sort out the facts from the mumbo – jumbo.

- It is very frightening when one commits to painting fruit in a bowl.

July 2019

When I started senior school and wasn't very happy, I fantasised about being a boy called 'Pedro' He spent all his time living on the beach in his shorts, seeing interesting things – not looking longingly out of his classroom window and earning the ire of his teachers.

This 'Pedro' Could gaze at clouds and investigate rock-pools without getting smacked on the back of his head or ridiculed by his fellow pupils.

In a strange and abstract way, now I live in the sun in the Mediterranean, I AM that long ago 'Pedro' because nobody is stopping me seeing, seeing, seeing. I won't wear shorts though.....

This month I have been mostly painting wasps and bumble bees, ladybirds, and butterflies on denim, walls and art board....... These things happen

March 2019

We've recently had a grand opening of our new gallery here in Felanitx. So instead of hanging paintings we've had to focus on catering, getting the wine in (pleasurable!) and organizing live music (essential!). In the event there was a good turn-out and I think the few hundred people in attendance had a good time. I received a gratifying number of compliments which shored up my cracked and bruised ego and I spent a lot of time talking about myself which was very easy.

The band – Tomas, Gus and Brendan – played some blistering blues and covers outside in the street, which proved a bit of a distraction from meeting and greeting.

On the creative front, I have been painting a dog, two cats and one of my surreal compositions which pop up from time to time. Another favourite recent painting was a realistic image of a bit of driftwood I'm strangely fond of. - I painted it in isolation which lends it to a feeling of something or other.

So this new year has so far turned out encouraging and I have a lot of ideas floating around in my head with which to confuse people in the future.......

February 2019

It's ironic that having had the opportunity to design my most efficient and practical studio yet, I find myself “blocked” - the part of me that is involved in painting seems to be sulking in the corner somewhere.

I have done a couple of small compositions based on the roof scape around our new home but what I'd like to create is an enormous 4m x 1m painting of the island. It's been in the planning stages for a long time and all I need is a bit of 'oomph' or a kick up the backside to actually get on with it.

So, as I usually do when bereft of inspiration, I've been making scratch models again – this time I have a fictional land speed record holding car, an unreliable old air plane and a quantity of fish from the deep hanging around my previously tidy studio....

December 2018

Wow ! Well chuffed with the new gallery – my paintings look so much clearer in the new lighting. The street we are now in has a lot of other galleries too so I'm getting into contact with plenty of artists and makers; plus I'm now showing work by Estefan Illan Henle a metal sculptor that I've long admired – giant, anatomically accurate insects that take your breath away. He also gave me a kitten!

On the creative front (I found some time amidst the move), I opted to do a painting of my late father. My dad died some years ago but it is only recently that I decided he would be a good subject for a portrait, something I rarely do and well out of my comfort zone. I'm rather pleased with it.....

October 2018

So there we were – content with our little gallery and my studio so stuffed it was an obstacle course – when we were shown somewhere completely different. In five minutes, our lives were spun around and suddenly I was in the daunting position of figuring out how the hell I was going to decant the contents of my studio, all balanced upon everything else, 400 yards up the road.

But it will be worth it. The new gallery will be bright, airy, air conned and quadruple the space we have now and my studio big enough to give me a nose bleed. My paintings will have a chance to breathe and shine and we won't have to listen to the high-volume tosh coming from the bar next door!

I will report back once the studio, gallery, home, angry kitten and the nervous breakdowns have been successfully transferred....

September 2018

After over three years on the island, my work is beginning to get a gratifying amount of attention! It's great meeting people and I can talk the hind leg off a donkey but some hang around and look at the paintings, I have a couple of commissions in the pipeline;- one painting of a local port, on driftwood, most of the composition is already in place in the grain , which saves sketching.

The other is a bit more terrifing – a formal portrait of a local family, something I've never attempted before, as long as they don't look like crumbling walls, I might get away with it.

July 2018

We had an open evening at the gallery recently and had a lovely time meeting interesting people. As usual I found myself saying - “No – they are paintings” quite frequently and also managed to forget everyone's name just seconds after being told it. - I'm surprised I remember my own.

On the painting front I'm planning another very large piece (1.4m x 1m ) but I won't say any more just yet in case I don't succeed In working out how to do it – all being well it should be a spectacular!

May 2018

It is important, of course, to keep on learning – to try new things, consider different viewpoints, meet other people, experience different cultures. Without fresh impetus, one’s mind – like a stream – becomes stagnant.

Consequently, I am always experimenting with techniques and ideas and this is the excuse I use for some of my peculiar creations none of which you're likely to see here!

It was in this vein that I recently decided to go large and attempt my biggest painting ever – an imposing (to me) metre by metre and a half. I'm known for the paintings of pebbles that I produced in Cornwall but here on Mallorca they are subtly different with a lot of limestone so a different challenge. Sadly – as is the case world wide – a lot of detritus and pollution washes on to our beaches and coves and its tragic that for a visitor on a boat it could be the first sign of 'intelligent' life.

In the finished painting - “eight signs of life” - included a few of the more interesting things I've found whilst beach combing to represent the uglier shit you're likely to find.

I'm pleased with it – very pleased – but I'd like to paint a clean beach one day. I hope I will.....

April 2018

As you can see from my recent output, I've been playing with still life compositions; - moving bottles, dishes and glasses around in the bright sunshine and exploring the reflections, distortions and cast shadows.

For various complicated and controversial reasons, I can no longer drink the quantity I used to but there's usually some empty wine bottle about. As in my other paintings, these still lifes are about people, but they are illustrated by their absence – like the layers of peeling paint on a door or a ruin that was once a home or an empty bowl and a few wine stains.

Another theme my work has in common is an element of fiction. I think lies are as revealing as the truth sometimes and though I illustrate real things realistically, they are posed – situations altered to suit the picture or invented shadows to change the time of day.

I'm always asking myself - “What is real” (though this could be lack of drink!) and I paint what I see. Any close look at my work will show I'm not pretending to be a photorealist but for me, every mark must be intended, and the shadows and textures must be convincing.

I don’t make my life easy – I should have been content to chuck paint and glue around and act like an “Artist”

February 2018

By nature, I can be hasty, impatient, and impulsive. My studio is small and very cluttered, and I tend to work on a number of projects at the same time. It contains a bewildering array of tools with the potential to put a stop to my artistic career once and for all.

There are fiercely spinning cutting discs; drills that would slip through flesh and bone with ease; a multitude of finger removing devices....

I lead an extremely hazardous existence and regularly sustain terrible damage - from bloated bloodshot eyes, to mysterious rashes and to a long, long line of scalpel penetration.

I've lost count of the times that I've dropped a scalpel into my thigh or shoe. I've lost the tip of my finger and I've almost operated on my own eyes whilst drinking coffee and holding and holding a knife simultaneously.

Anyway I'll get back to work now - I've got to get it done whilst I'm still living...

November 2017

Everyone needs a holiday, in my case – having a change from tiny brushes and throttling my eyesight to bigger, mainly brushes; thick acrylic; big boards and an idiot grin on my face.

Inspired by a visit to a friend’s vineyard, the lurid autumn colours were a perfect excuse to go large and chuck paint around a bit. It’s very odd to be working on such a large scale and forcing myself to drop some detail – literally looking at the bigger picture.

October 2017

It’s going to be a very trying time during the short period that the gallery is closed for a refit. It will require patience, a philosophical attitude and a broad understanding of the Spanish language and culture…. These are the things that frankly I do not possess. Added to which, my studio will be out of action and we have a family visit that might involve someone sleeping in the shower of our tiny home. I shall pause here for a well earned nervous breakdown.

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One week later…..

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-well that’s better. The gallery is much improved now and less cluttered and we also have music as a gentle aid to grasping and emptying wallets! I would have liked bullet proof glass as a protection from the enraged farmers but I can’t have everything. Now I have to yet again clear out and re-arrange my studio before knuckling down to some new painting projects - I’m getting my mojo back!

September 2017

Still blocked on the painting front and for some reason I seem to have developed a mini obsession for petrol pumps of yesteryear. I made a couple of small models which I found pleasantly satisfying and then in one of my regular brain storms, I built a full size model that doubles as a wine bar. I wonder if there are any gallerias in Palma that specialise in petrol pumps....

I thought the time had come to produce a small book. It's a quality softback, A4 and limited to an edition of 300- All signed and numbered. It features a selection of my paintings of Mallorca and it is called “Portraits of an Island” Watch this space.....

August 2017

Every once in a while I find myself creatively 'blocked' regarding my painting – despite all the beauty, age and character of this island. I feel unable to illustrate it or even be open to it's charms.

On these occasions I find myself working on models or sculptures (some of which I might show on this site, even though it aint painting!) which seem to use a different area of my brain. Unfortunately this leads to utter chaos in my studio – 3' deep piles of litter, half completed skulls or fake sports cars,mummified hands and mountains of bits 'n' pieces of junk to say nothing of more glue in my hair and lungfuls of aerosol paint. So, during another scorching summer here, I decided not only to clear it out but to completely rebuild it and now it all looks neat and squared away. Perhaps I'll paint in it soon....

These models though;- I built a truck that I imagined a deranged farmer might put together and made it out of paper, foam board and all sorts of junk and painted it in ninety shades of lovely rust. Then I moved on to a couple of 2 -seater coupes from maybe the 1940's – Again fictional and again sitting in a field of straw. The worrying thing is I don't know why!

On the gallery front – Every year here in Felanitx, we have a “Nitx del Art” (Art night) in which all the shops and galleries open late to show all their latest art. This went very well for us with a lot of interest though there were a few puzzled faces over my models.....

June 2017

Very hot here at the moment and explosively hot in my studio, which serves to slow me down and concentrate on all the lovely details. Every street in this town seems to harbour a picturesque and satisfyingly eroded wall or door that tells a hundred stories.

However it’s all very well hanging around but there’s a whole island to explore. I particularly want to poke around some old farmyards to see what exciting inspiration I might glean but I’m a little reluctant to get my head blown off by an enraged farmer – what about my hat?

May 2017

Busy, busy, busy, we’ve re-hung the gallery which is a vast improvement and added more plants outside to brighten it all up.

I’ve done some more modelling :- I’ve built a giant dead dragonfly with an engine in it; a fictional 1960’s bar door; an underwater scene and a human/robot hybrid head that is screaming………(You try living in my head.)

On the painting front I’ve let myself off the leash to sniff some artistic lampposts. so to speak. Big paintings using big brushes, acrylics and spray cans – Really good fun and quite liberating compared to my more meticulous work.

I also found an old barn that contained a fantastic range of junk and interesting cart and got my teeth into all the detail. I am pretty chuffed with the result.

March 2017

My work is often mistaken for photography but that’s missing the point; - for me, the beauty is in the detail. The textures, patinas, stains, and rust that show the impermanence of man and the subtler powers of nature. All those details require a higher degree of realism than a few gestural daubs and spatters.

Whilst I do work from photographic reference it’s for technical veracity more than anything else.- my biggest source is my memory coupled with a lot of scrunched up sketches filed on the floor.

I’m still in awe of this wonderful island and I’ve not seen a tenth of it yet so exciting times ahead. We have started to advertise our presence in lovely old Felanitx as we thought it might be a good idea to tell people where we are.

Recently I’ve been painting Arum lilies in a more graphical style than is normal and I’m starting a large sculpture which might or might not come off.

February 2017

So after hammering, filling, painting, re-wiring, refitting, junk shopping, studio sorting etc. – we are finally open. Phew! And despite a cold wind, excessive rain and even snow, I’ve been on a bit of a creative high. This wonderful island keeps feeding me inspiration and I’ve added a lot more paintings to the “Mallorca Series” and also some paper sculptures in box frames that I’m delighted with.

Our gallery has already attracted favourable comments which of course is great and we´re hoping word will spread of our whereabouts and my unique art.

On a sad note, I recently lost my loyal little dog, Puck – but he was old and we had so many good times together. No longer will he lie in his bed between my drawing board and his heater!

On days when the gallery is closed and the hot sun is finally here, I shall be out and about in my little van searching for more material – you know the stuff; - Old buildings eccentricities, oddities, the regular jaw dropping view and there´s so much about here. I wonder what I´ll do next and whether it will involve cement on the floor, paint in my hair or superglued fingers.! I hope you enjoy my labours and I will report back with news of more work in the fullness of time……..

April 2016

Well Phew! What a year it has been - I've got wed to my lovely lady; we've emigrated to Mallorca and become "Legal Aliens" and I've been almost overwhelmed with inspiration for this beautiful island.

To date I have completed 17 paintings and as you will see they are a diverse collection from old doors and buildings to salt marshes and shoes!

It really is a stunning island away from the resorts and the countryside is green and rich with flowers and birds all year round in glorious sunshine. In May we move to a town house where I shall start work on my new gallery and studio and hopefully open to the public in July - Watch this space....!