summertime : out and about
18 December 2016
After many weeks of painting birds, and 7 whole months of just watercolours, I now have my acrylics out. That means lots of playing with paint, getting paint everywhere and on everything and abstracts...
out and about Clear tags
putting in the time : talent vs determination
6 December 2016
Here is a Chaffinch. He's the smartest dressed bird in my garden. He never goes out unless he is perfectly groomed :-) And here's what I read about Chaffinches. They make lots of chip and cheep calls,...
it's a spring thing
25 November 2016
Back home in beautiful Central Otago, we've been having the most lush Spring I can ever remember. No art this time, just photos :-) Meanwhile, in the studio, I'm continuing with my New Zealand bird se...
life's too short to suntan
13 October 2016
If you had said to us a month ago that we were beach people we would have scoffed. "You mean, like, lying in the sun, reading a book, on your tiny patch of sand, with a hundred other people. No way!" ...
urban sketch spain - step by step
7 September 2016
Bestue, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, near the national park of Ordesa & Monte Perdido had the following description on the tourist map we have ... "one of the villages in Sobrarbe that has most s...
the time it takes
20 August 2016
Almost everyone who pages through my sketchbook asks 'How long does one of your paintings take?' The answer is ... around about 2 hours. That's a long time to sit in one spot! But here's the thing. I ...
urban sketch in italy - step by step
5 August 2016
I thought it would be fun to take a series of shots showing the steps I take when doing one of my urban sketches. Here is the scene I chose. It's in the tiny town of Daghei in the Dolomites in Italy. ...
time in the mountains
31 July 2016
It has been ages since I wrote a blog post because we've been spending the last few weeks in the mountains with very little mobile coverage. And, to be honest, when we're in solitude-mode, I don't oft...
five weeks in Spain - part 2 - flowers
23 June 2016
We have visited Spain and Catalunya for rock climbing many, many times - in fact we've lost count! We've always visited either in autumn or winter. This year, the rain in France drove us south in spri...