Back in the studio again

It has been a diffucult week or two and I havent been able to work as much as I would have liked, but yesterday I was back at work finding my mojo as I always do when I paint. These two gentle souls are part of a commissioned painting Im working on this week. Who could be glum with these two around? So I decided to take this photo entitled ‘Three windswept beasts!’

Highland Bulls - a couple of smaller works in progress

Sometimes I like to go through my pile of unfinished canvases and turn them into something new. So this week I started these two young Highland Bulls in a similar palette of rust and stormy blue. The guy on the left is 50 x 60 cm and on the right 70 x 70 cm. Both of these will be available for sale when they are finished.

A highly textured cow painting takes time to dry!

You can see how thick the paint is, on this piece. The first full layer took two weeks to properly dry, and this is another layer of bright oil paint - I like to use contrasts and hues to create the illusion of depth, and to make the entire surface of the canvas interesting to look at. This is a cow with a sweet countenance and a little attitude in her stance. Looking forward to getting her finished this week.

Hares today

Wildlife Paintings for Sale UK

wildlife oil painting featuring a brown hare with blue background

I have been working on some wildlife paintings, beginning with these new hare paintings. I enjoy the challenge of trying to capture their expressive faces. These most recent hare paintings will be available on my website in a few days. They are smaller pieces at 45 x 65 cm and 50 x 60 cm.

Painting session - Woodland Stag

This week I have changed the way that I work slightly to accommodate a couple of restrictions, and it has turned out to be in my favour. I spent yesterday painting this gentleman. I have used the same reference photo in a previous painting several years ago, and it was interesting for me, to return and see the differences in my own approach.

A rainbow Cow painting triptych

large rainbow coloured cow painting

Today at the studio I hope to finish this colourful guy. One of the things that I do as part of my process, as well as creating the big shapes first, is that I work intuitively on the first layers. I don’t try and worry too much about the final result. This then gives me something to respond to in the following sessions. So I have added all the colours that I wanted to add and the wild and woolly hair. Today I will work back into the paintings and edit, tidying up some of the edges and leaving others, hopefully ending up with the final cow that I envision. Watch this space, I’ll post another photo of the final piece.

I enjoy painting on three panels, the finished effect is cool and contemporary and you get different looks depending on whether you leave a gap when you hang the paintings. I’m currently feeling very glad that I have rented this size of a studio, I remember during the pandemic, when I was painting at home and trying to create a big piece like this in the spare room - not easy!

My vegan friendly silk scarves featured in Vegan Life Magazine!

I was extremely pleased when I was tagged in a post by Victoria Featherstone Pearce this week on Instagram! It turns out she has featured my cruelty-free silk alternative scarves in Vegan Life Magazin this month. Of course, I am absolutely thrilled, as I spent ages and ages trying to find a way of producing these and the easy option would have been to use real silk, however, the process they use to get real silk real is barbaric so I won’t have anything to do with that. Instead, I’ve managed to find a fabric that is almost like the real thing - soft floaty and beautiful, and man-made. I have my original artwork printed on this fabric which is then hemmed by experts and then sent out to the lucky recipient.

To celebrate this bit of welcome press coverage I have revamped my collection and added the option of a printed presentation tin to match. Have a look at the newest designs here. And if you want to have a look at the magazine, I’ve linked it in the image below!

A word of warning about bogus art prints on Amazon

Art Fakes - Copyright Issues

A kind customer contacted me today to show me a fake listing of my work on Amazon. Unfortunately, this is not a new issue, and whenever I have a spare 30 minutes, I report copyright infringements and remove the fake items. It seems to be a never-ending battle but Ill continue to do it. Not only is it thievery from me as they have stolen my image to use for their own greedy purposes. But the most annoying thing is that they produce terrible quality reproductions that are bound to disappoint the innocent purchaser. This is because they don’t have any access whatsoever to my proper high-quality high-resolution files, so the rubbish-quality prints they make are highly pixelated. I hate to see the feedback they get describing poor, blurry images. Of course, they don’t care, they’ve got their money and they couldn’t care less about building a relationship of trust with their customers. They don’t care. But I do, so I’m just letting you know it’s always ok if you want to check in with me if you’re considering purchasing a print and you’re not sure if it’s authorised merchandise. I’ll be happy to take a look and let you know.

fake art prints

This one above is a typical fake. Cheeky devils have even named this ‘The Night of the Rabbit’! The original of this is in fact called ‘Magic by Moonlight’ and is my original oil painting, sold in 2020. I will endeavour to get these people reported immediately.

Forest Sunlight Painting

This piece is 100 x 100 cm I think - I have yet to measure it

I really love getting inspiration from the beautiful National Forest surrounding my home. Especially during the early Spring when the sun is low in the sky, as it makes stunning lighting effects for my work!

  • Update* This piece was sold, through the excellent Ferrers Gallery near Ashby de la Zouch. Please see my originals page, or join my art collectors mailing list for newly upcoming forest scenes.

Synaesthesia - colours written in black and white

I see colour in the written word. When I look at the page of a book, I see colours jumping up at me from the page as I scan the shapes of letters. Sounds and music have a colour which I can clearly see.

I know it sounds strange but I’m not alone!

Synaesthesia is a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. It is estimated that only a small percentage of the population experiences synaesthesia


When I was in my teens I mentioned the coloured numbers to my mum "You know '3' is red, and so is 'A'? I’m not sure whether she thought I was being daft! I was surprised to learn that most people don’t share this phenomenon.

Years later I found out that this is known as Synaesthesia, and that a small percentage of people experience it. I was excited to hear that I was not the only one seeing the names of friends, places, and telephone numbers in stripes of vivid colour. I remembered the word 'Synaesthesia (with its attractive combination of greens, red and pink) and when the internet came along I was able to google it and find out more.

At that time, nobody knew much about it. Recently there has been a lot more research. There is even an online 'test' that you can do to see if you have numbers/letters to colour’ synaesthesia, which is known as 'colour-grapheme synaesthesia' I took the test, although I already knew what the results would be.

Telephone numbers appear as a kind of colourful bar code. Sometimes synaesthesia makes it really easy to remember things. It can sometimes be confusing, particularly when words are printed in the wrong colour. My Tuesdays and Thursdays come as a pair, both being blue-grey, which can lead to mix-ups.

Friend’s names appear in colour, which can make it very easy or hard to remember! For instance, my Elaine, Helen and Wendys are all green, names which may lead to mix-ups. Barbara and Sarah are both red and black. I must write my shopping lists down so that I don’t arrive back with items memorised as a similar ‘colour’ that is not required.

I do enjoy being synaesthetic it gives me such a colourful and slightly chaotic life :)

I’m sure that my art is influenced by synaesthesia. I have a strong affinity with certain colours and use colours to perk up my mood or calm me down, depending on what I need. These are the colours that find their way into my work on any particular day.