Another story goes with this painting.  The purpose was two-fold.  First to paint something, in this case the cloth, that would be as vivid a red as paint on canvas can possibly be.  The second is to paint something that is white, but how do you do that when the lightest colour of paint you have is white?  What other colours do you use?  This whole bowl cannot be all white if it is to look like a three dimensional object.   Darker paint is needed to show it is turning toward a darker background.  But what colours are needed so that they all look part of something that is glazed and white?  The piece of red silk was something I had bought from the ‘cupboard’ on my last day at St Martins School of Art many years ago.  I still have it, soft and brilliant, folded up in an old (vintage) laundry hamper made of willow that  creaks when the lid is lifted.  The bowl, is in fact a sauceboat with the saucer attached and was given to me as a leaving present by a good friend at Angel Academy – Rusudana Gointi – a terrific artist.  I still have that too, on a shelf among coffee pots, tea pots, glasses and odds and ends.  But this is where its real life was – and in Rusudana’s painting of it.  After six years I realised I could finally part with the painting and it is with another friend – up the road and around a few corners – in her house it looks very at home.  

Oil on canvas   2013  85 x 65cm   33 x 26in 

Second eggs study in a series of paintings exploring some of the external features of eggs – texture, variation in colour and markings which are heightened against the simplicity of the pastel background.  All four worked well together and it seems like a good idea to paint some more.  A very small change in the composition will give a new character to the little paintings.  Pheasant or quail’s eggs could well be contenders.

Oil on panel   2020   20 x 20cm   8 x 8in

First eggs study in a series of paintings exploring some of the external features of eggs – texture, variation in colour and markings which are heightened against the simplicity of the pastel background.  All four worked well together but now that three are sold it seems like a good idea to paint some more.  A very small change in the composition will give a new character to the little paintings.  Pheasant or quail’s eggs could well be contenders.

Oil on panel   2020   20 x 20cm   8 x 8in

Oil on canvas 2013

40 x 30 cm

A metal tankard and a brass plate, flowers, shiny fabric, a half peeled orange, they are all challenges that I wanted to meld into a subtle coloured still life.  In fact the orange was not part of it all to begin but as I worked on the first stages of the painting it was evident that a higher chroma focal point was necessary.  Higher chroma?  Orange is a high chroma colour – it is a vivid colour.  Most colours can be low chroma – subdued, low value – darker, high chroma – vivid, high value – paler.  The different textures found in citrus fruit are very absorbing to paint.  This is the kind of thing that I find fascinating along with pretty much every other aspect of painting.  Working for many hours on a canvas draws one in to another world where the folds and bends of fabric take on their own landscape in fact they become a landscape, as do the other elements.  The Poppy emerges from the darkness casting its own shadow which becomes part of the whole.  The writing on the Tankard is clearly there, but unreadable – make of it what you will.  

Oil on linen   2015   67 x 57cm    26 x 22in