Tree frog in watercolour

I STRUGGLED INTO MY LAYERS, picked up my light sketching kit and off I went up into the hills behind where I live. I wasn’t the first to arrive; halfway up the hill I could already hear the cries of e

WINTER HELLEBORES, ALSO KNOWN AS CHRISTMAS ROSES, come in many different colours. We love those with cool green petals, veined and limned with pinkish red. The fern fronds and ivy complement them perf

Autumn brings a splash of golden warmth, when leaves start transforming from green to rich golds and russet reds. It can be quite daunting to know where to start when interpreting a mass of foliage wh

SOMETIMES MAKING LIFE SIMPLER FOR YOURSELF and avoiding overthinking a process gets you further. In painting terms, using flat colours does exactly that and it may even prove to hold the key to more c

This sunny landscape of oak trees in Chatsworth Park in Derbyshire is a wonderfully inspiring view, masses of Autumnal foliage back-lit by the warm sunshine. But how can we recreate that warmth with t

Every painting’s varying subject matter and scale offers us distinct opportunities and challenges. Before I start any project, I like to consider what I want to convey, what opportunities and challeng