Yes, a good few months have been and gone since my last post, and so much has happened. Apart from several submissions to local art shows in Hertford, Ayot St Lawrence and St Albans there wasn’t a lot of time to prepare work for any of the London Open Submissions this year. One exception was the Royal Instatute of Marine Artists, and I was a little disppointed to not get to the final stages of judging this year, as I have had success there for the last 2 years.

The main preoccupation of the summer months was the buiding of my new studio on the side of our home. We were fortunate to have a large area which was once a car port and served only as a place to store junk, but now has a far better status as an art studio!!  As it was only finished just before the first week of September – I had a frantic few days before it became a showpiece venue for my 3 weekend Open Studio commitments during the last weeks of September. The clean light room became an ideal space to show a variety of work to about 50 visitors during those weeks as it was more of a gallery than a studio.

I manged to work on a number of paintings before all the building took place, and I am pleased that this turned out to be in my view, a turning point in my method of working. The structure of my painting has become more focussed and the loser brushwork with many layers of overpainting seem to have set a new visual language in the work.

The first time I had an opportunity to show these particular paintings was at my annual exhibtion at the Camden Image Gallery in October with the London Painters & Sculptors Group of which I am one of ten members.  One of the eight paintings sold and a lot of good feedback was given to me from admiring visitors.