July 2024

31st July 2024

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A small pen and ink sketch I made in Hainault Forest during 2021, My anxiety was very high at the time with the continuing covid situation so I took myself off to the forest for a bit. I parked myself under a tree with my flask of tea, a banana and a chocolate roll and sketched whatever was in front of me. Out of all of them this was the one I was most happy with. Funny how art - even a simple sketch - can place you right back in a certain time and memory.

29th July 2024

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A charcoal sketch which later became a painting called Time Slipping Away, part of my Dark Discoveries series. You’ll find the finished painting under that title in one of the galleries.

28th July 2024

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Came across this from about 2011. I was using mannequins as a basis for a series of paintings in which I used the subject matter to make almost a fantasy portrait, starting somewhere and not really knowing where I might end up. If I can find the finished product I’ll share it in a future post. I think I remember this day in the studio, a hot day in October during an Indian summer, At the bottom right you can see the sketch I remember making in charcoal and ink.

27th July 2024

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I love this spontaneous collaboration between artist and photographer Hajia Dahiru and myself. Hajia took a photo of me while I was working in my then studio around 2017/18, a monotone print on photo paper which I then went to town with using watercolours.

22nd July 2024

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A watercolour and ink sketch from 2015. This one was part of series I was working on called Secret Souls, which you can see under Earlier Works on the main navigation. This particular sketch has since been framed and is currently hanging on a private collector’s wall.

20th July 2024

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Another early sketch from about 2009. This came from a period where I was playing with watercolours and inks in my (then) studio. If memory serves the sketch was based on a photograph of Tom Waits. I remember losing control of the whole thing and went off in my own direction, the only thing that survived from the original source being the bowler hat he was wearing. I liked the outcome at the time and still do.

12th July 2024

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I was thinking about what to make my first blog post about and while normally I might’ve written an introductory post all about myself, I’m kind of crap at it. So I think I’ll start with the first random thought I had as I sat down to type, which happens to be a memory from 2020, about a week or two away from the first Lockdown, when life had suddenly taken a dark and uncertain path. This was the day I took myself off to Hainault Forest for a quiet break away from the growing anxiety we were all facing. I took a sketchbook with me and a flask of tea and did my first plein air sketch in years. It was just a quick pencil sketch before my walk back home but it helped - a moment of calm before the shit storm coming our way, one of the last. Four years on and I don’t think I’ve ever been the same since that day.