April 2026 Newsletter
Welcome to my April newsletter! It feels like March has been a rush of painting and planning. There’s some news I can share with you, and some which will have to keep for another day. Thank you for subscribing as always, I hope you find the newsletter interesting!
The Spring Studio Sale
As promised, the studio sale is coming soon! Tuesday 21st April to be exact, when you'll receive your special access password and you can access the sale page ahead of its public release. The page will be made live to the general public on Thursday 23rd April. So keep an eye on your email on Tuesday 21st to see your password and link to the sale page come through!
Some very keen collectors and buyers have emailed me about the works in the sale, and some have come round to view the artworks. And quite a few have been snapped up! 7 sale pieces have sold already (thank you to everyone who has already bought one), and one keen collector twisted my arm for a painting I wasn't intending to include, but she loved it and I’m really happy to see it go to a good home. Another three larger non-sale paintings have been reserved too!
The studio sale features a lot of my smaller, experimental, sketches or older works. If you have been round to see them in person, you will know that I badly need to redo my studio space so I have more drying racks, storage, and a practical workbench where I can make panels and canvases. So these pieces need to go to new homes.
All artworks are priced between £50-300. I know this sale is an absolute bargain, so you'll have to make the most of my generous pricing mood. I don't think it will happen again! 😂
You can view the PDF of the sale pieces and prices here - link reserved for newsletter subscribers only!
Recent Paintings
Last newsletter I didn’t quite have the time to dive into some of my more recent paintings. and I’ve done some more since then! So apologies as I play catch up. I hope this isn’t too long of a read but I enjoy taking the time to think about them and analyse them in this way, which really helps my future paintings and ensures I absorb whatever learning I can.
The Sleep
Oil on canvas panel, 60×25cm
Sold
So first up is this forest painting, made in the woods north of Plympton (not Cann Woods, but another wood east across the valley). It was very cold and quiet, I didn’t see another person when I painted this. The weather was very overcast and still, lots of muted grey light. I walked uphill through mud and streams before I found this forest, but I loved the ochre leaves on the floor and the linearity of the trunks, with the subtle light poking through the gaps in the distance. I started to paint this in a more traditional way, but I was struggling to capture something of the muted atmosphere and the low light. So I scrubbed it all out, and decided to start carving into the paint instead, rather than trying to paint it on. Using a toothed tool I could start to emulate the textures of the bark in the trees and the leaves on the floor.
Before too long, it got too cold to continue (doesn’t a February feel a world away weather-wise now), and I had to head home. But I came back again in early March on a similarly overcast day to spend a little more time with this. Mostly, it just needed a little work to bring out some of the colours. But I found this process really hard to do without losing the carved mark-making, or destroying the muted, cold energy of the piece. What started to work was using transparent colours as glazes, softly bringing out some of the tones in the darker areas and nearer trees, and the colours of the fallen leaves and the emerging bluebell leaves on the forest floor.
This is still a very muted painting and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. But sitting with it at home, it has really grown on me. I love the textural approach and this is certainly something I will build on in future paintings. I am aware that on a technical side, as the oil in the paint and glazes dries, the dark colours tend to dull. Varnishing an oil painting brings the life in the colours back out. However, you can’t varnish a painting for a year (minimum of 6 moths apparently if you want to risk it and the paint is thinner) as oil paint needs this long to properly cure and oxidise.
This work has already sold to one collector who reserved it after seeing it on it’s first session- thank you! It just needs that varnishing from their local framer when the time is right.
Progress shot
Progress shot
And now to Mount Edgcumbe again for this catastrophe! When some brighter weather kicked in in late February, I was rushing out to make the most of some dryness and warmth. I raced down to the Cremyll Ferry, lugging all my painting gear. As some of you may know, I have had some serious mental health issues over the last few years, leading to loss of memory, serious fatigue, and processing issues. Now I take regular ADHD medications, keep very hydrated and eats lots of protein. And guess what I forgot to do on this day! Yes, I forgot my meds, forgot my protein bar and nuts, went out on a hot day and nearly collapsed. So this painting didn’t quite go as planned! My amazing wife drove down and rescued me.
Saying that, I loved the view this work is looking at - a gap between the massive hedging and the shaded path, with slivers of sunlight creeping through, and a crystal blue sky sparkling between the shadowed leaves. So I will be back, whether to try on this panel again or to start a new one.
Unfinished
Work in progress
Next up, this view, painted from near Devonport Park and overlooking the Dockyard, has always been fascinating - there is so much movement and practicality here. Also, as the sun swings around in the afternoon, it bounces back at you from the river, completely altering the scene. This one is a work in progress, but I think it shows the confidence in my painting now. My marks are bold, and I am learning when to leave something which says enough. I love my treatment of the distant hills, where a few strokes of paint say all they need to say.
I’ve always said that the best painters are the ones who know when to leave something unsaid. It you look at the plein air (outdoor painting) work of Sorolla and Sargent, they are incredible at knowing when not to paint something. This may sound daft, but it’s like listening to music from songwriters who are at the top of their game - they use silence to give the rest of the music more emphasis.
I took some of the lessons learnt in the forest painting and applied them here, mostly in the sky (which is kind of brushed with a soft cloth to revel the luminosity of the primed panel and reinforce the brightness of the early March sky) and the enormous workshop buildings (where removing paint in lines helps to capture the sunshine reflecting back off the corrugated metal). This is still a work in progress and I need to find a sunny afternoon soon when I can complete this before the sun rises too high in the sky!
On location
Substance (title to be decided)
42×21cm, oil on panel
Not for sale
I got to head back to Mount Edgcumbe and finally finish the cork trees I started way back in January. I was waiting for a sunny but hazy afternoon, because this painting is all about the hazy golden light saturating and blurring everything in the distance, turning the gaps in between the trees and branches into soft, glowing spaces. I wanted to capture the sense of the hazy light washing around everything. I added some details where leaves reflected the ochre light, or shadows needed a bit more definition. But mostly this painting needed that soft light bleeding through. In the end, using more opaque (rather than transparent) colours in glazes helped - the opacity of the paint is still there, but thinning it in a glaze creates a burry middle ground. It’s kind of see-through, kind of not. And it kind of washes over the more distant trees, dulling them a bit and pulling them into the haze. I was so pleased this worked so well. As ever with this kind of painting, knowing when to leave it is a challenge. But I’m really happy with the feel of it and it’s hazy, semi-abstract nature. I love this piece and will be entering it into some painting competitions!
On location in Mount Edgcumbe
On location at Plymouth Hoe
This is a view I’ve always struggled with when deciding if I should paint it - it’s borderline impossible not to turn it into a pretty postcard image. But the sun was still low enough to reflect dazzling light back across the sea, and the sun’s low angle unified all the shade across as hazy scene into areas of blocky colours. I knew I had to try something with it.
On an evolutionary level, we associate looking across a blue sea with calmness. When we had to survive as a species, having the sea to one side of us meant that we were safe from that side - nothing could really threaten us from a calm sea. And that elemental feeling of safety remains. I think it’s why we love seeing this expanse of blue stretching away, it calms us and reassures us, relaxes us. So that’s the focus of this painting - that feeling of calm.
To capture this, I knew I needed to reduce the visual information down. I decided to leave out detail and event to reduce the amount of paint used, keeping thinner washes of colour for the sky, sea and land, even wiping and reducing these down to let the reflective nature of the smooth white panel to do its work. The one area I focused on was the details on the sea - that dazzling light and the suggesting of currents and tidal flows. Really there is very little in this painting, but I think that allows the calmness to emerge.
Calm Currents
42×21cm, oil on panel
Reserved
Meandering Tides
42×21cm, oil on panel
Then to the sea again! I’ve actually painted this view a year ago, on a smaller scale. But I was thinking about the calmness idea and wanted to try it with the light behind me. So another ferry trip over the Mount Edgcumbe, and I painted this from the main beach looking back towards Plymouth. The tide was rushing out, turning the bay into a calm pool as the tidal water pushed all the waves out to sea. It was quite a hazy day too and I wanted to take some of the learning from my previous painting a bit further forward. So this one was painted in just four or five colours, and 95% of it is a mix of ultramarine, sienna and white. Knowing what to leave unsaid was the issue! The sky and the sea, so tempting to fill with paint. But I managed to leave them roughly alone, letting my initial carving out with my scraper do most of the work. I really enjoyed capturing the distance and letting that sense of quiet and calm come through.
On location at Mount Edgcumbe. It had clouded over by this point!
Work in progress
52×28cm
Finally, a clearer day with good visibility. I’ve had my eye on this view for a while - it’s up by Tregantle Fort, and you can see for miles and miles from here, all the way to Dartmoor in this direction. I love the light and shadows hitting the distant tors - a challenge to get the contrast needed, while keeping the sense of distance. The clouds were clearing rapidly, so I tackled them first, then the shadows and light on Dartmoor, and then the cows before they moved. I didn’t quite get to complete this one before the light and mood changed too much, so I’ll come back for a second session on another cloud-clearing afternoon.
On location near Tregantle Fort
Other News
Ok, so that’s the artwork catch up. Thanks for sticking with that! And let me know if any paintings catch your eye. As always, you are welcome over to view the studio and have a good art chat. Just drop me an email (email address only given to newsletter subscribers) and we can sort that out.
I plan, in the future (probably the winter when the days get shorter), to start making painting tutorial videos. If this would be something you are interested in, please let me know.
I am still working on podcast episodes and these will be coming, but probably again when the autumn and winter close in.
In the meantime, I aim to make the most of the longer day and drier weather and get some painting done!
Thank you again!
As always, thank you so much for being a subscriber and for all your help, support and love! It’s a pleasure to be able to share my art journey with you all and build connections with people who love painting - whether that’s viewing them, creating them or learning how to paint. If there’s anything you’d like to chat about, please please just send me an email (address included in my original newsletter only) or message on social media. I love to hear from you!
