The Zoffany evening didn’t go quite as expected – nevertheless with a generous audience, Penny showed her slides and talked about Zoffany – while I interjected short bits about how I met Penny during an Indian trip and I was able to talk a little about Sir William Jones (1746-1794). He was reciting Shakespeare at … Read more
I took round 34 paintings to Book & Kitchen in All Saints Road, this morning – they are due to be hung on Wednesday 22nd October – for the opening on Thursday 23rd – Diwali. There is a mixture of styles – some are inspired by Indian miniatures (12 of which I’ve made into a … Read more
I do hope that you will be able to come to this – limited places on the evening – but the paintings will be up for a while afterwards Book and Kitchen,  31 All Saints Road,  W11 1HE  020 3417 8266  Zoffany in India with Penelope Treadwell and Sarah Anderson Thursday … Read more
Just back from a wonderful two weeks of painting in Provence … beautiful weather (apart from battling the Mistral while doing collage – that was a challenge!) Most mornings we did an exercise – the first week was collage and the second week was colour and in the afternoons we painted what we liked – … Read more
I wrote the following review for the September 2014 Conde Nast Traveller: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard. After reading Annie Dillard’s finely observed descriptions of nature and place you begin to see the world truly. On her walks, Dillard sees herself as both explorer and stalker and Tinker Creek – near her home in a valley … Read more
A very varied trip to Brazil – it began in the Pantanal, a wonderful wildlife area. On our first drive out we saw over 70 different kinds of birds – this rose to over 100 during the week. Jaguars remained elusive but hyacinth macaws are as exotic as they sound and we got very close … Read more
Wonderful painting week in Scotland at Kishorn with North West Highlands Art; ten of us painters with Ray Balkwill as the tutor. We were incredibly lucky with the weather (it was raining down south) and the only negative as far as I was concerned was the long drive – flying with painting gear is not … Read more
Wonderful week in Devon – doing a painting course with Robin Child. The week revolved around John Piper and each morning Robin would give us a brilliant lecture with slides – explaining WHY most of Piper’s paintings worked (and why some didn’t). Extremely stimulating. Then up to the studio where we used collage and tried … Read more
A lot has been happening – I seem to have got over the post-exhibition block and I think that’s because I have a new project – in fact MANY new projects! The first is an exhibition of paintings to do with India and inspired by Zoffany. Penny Treadwell, a good friend, has written a book … Read more
Don’t seem to be able to paint since the exhibition – horrible feeling. Good news that one of my paintings – the one that was on the flier and which didn’t sell – has been accepted into a competition at the Marsden. I have to take it along next week. Now I have a couple … Read more