Master Watercolour
Master Watercolour is a practical book project that began in September 2018 and took me more than a year to complete. My first task was to look through the entire Tate Gallery collection for works in watercolour that I believed…
Reading the T’s and C’s
I've just returned from a three week walking tour around La Gomera, one of the smallest islands of the Canaries. COVID-19 put paid to our annual seven week trek across Spain, but with only eleven active cases of the virus…
Using the hand to train the eye…
In the latest edition of Seeing Things, my regular podcast on Frome FM about the visual arts, I talk to Paul Crummay from The Drawing Room in Wells. Next door to Heather Wallace's Heritage Courtyard Gallery and Studios, The Drawing…
In the frog house!
Many years ago, my mum bought a frog. Not a real one, but a wall-eyed, green and black-striped, purple-bellied beanbag frog, which (when my brothers and I weren't hurling it at one another), took up semi-permanent residence on the sofa…
Angry Art?
A long time ago, when I first began teaching art, I suggested to a class that we try our hand at abstracts. I remember one student staring hard at her paper in silence for about twenty minutes and then, setting to with the…
When the bubble pops…
La Finca Paradiso is a green oasis in the Almerian desert; a 33 acre bubble of tranquility where we make time stand still so you can concentrate on your painting and drawing... oh, and your tan... and swimming... and breakfast, lunch and supper of…
Look To Your Paper
JMW Turner painted one of his most famous sunsets* on tinted paper, so I thought I'd have a go, too! The experience, however, turned all my ideas about watercolour painting upside down. I mean, whoever heard of putting all those…
Straining wistful eyes into vacancy…
It's about that time when the New Year starts to feel a lot like the old one and I'm tempted to consign my resolutions to the bin along with the Christmas tree. It's easy to feel that way about your art,…
The Art Before Christmas
It's the last art class before Christmas and everyone has that 'end of term' feeling - you know, when you're unsure if you can concentrate on your art or not? You have a squillion and one things to do at…