September – always a positive if somewhat melancholy month for me – new beginnings and in my case this year a new website. With the old one I felt that the paintings were just an add on – with the new one I feel that they are integral to the site. Indeed the home page … Read more
Having found out where the hermit nun lives, I get up very early and walk to her chapel in the woods. I rather assumed she’d be an early riser but I think I arrive too early as the chapel is still locked. I ring a bell and she comes out and lets me in. A … Read more
We’re dropped off in Joucas and the theme for the morning is to paint the whole page simultaneously with a tapestry of colours. I start off with the church which appeals as it has a cypress tree each side of the main door – and at the moment I love drawing and painting cypress trees! … Read more
Mark tells us that human sacrifices took place on the flat rock which I spend the morning painting – but another theory is that it was used as an observatory. We are encouraged to use a reduced palette with just one range of colours. In the afternoon we drive to a local forest with wonderful … Read more
In the morning get taken to the market in Isle-sur-la Sorgue. It’s a particularly vibrant market and as usual at a French market I am struck by the wonderful displays of vegetables. Why can’t we do the same here? In the afternoon we go out to a local chateau  with limited materials and draw with … Read more
Get on a train just after 7 am at St Pancras and 5 ½ hours later I’m met at Avignon by David Atkinson. The beginning of a week’s painting in Provence at Les Bassacs. We are 12 students in total with Mark Cazalet, whom I’d known from England, as the teacher. Les Bassacs is a … Read more
As a child, writer Sarah Anderson had her arm amputated. Her stiff-upper-lip family never spoke of the trauma – and nor did she. Denial came at a cost, she tells Cassandra Jardine Shortly before Sarah Anderson’s 10th birthday, the first lump was found just below the elbow of her left arm. For the next seven … Read more
Inside Notting Hill Rachman, Profumo, Bob Marley, Malcolm X… oh, and Hugh Grant. They’ve all left their mark on London’s Trustafarian suburb says the author of a guide. I’d been nagged for years to do an update of Inside Notting Hill – a book I’d first published under the imprint Portobello Publishing in 2001. The … Read more