The pleasure of alla prima landscape painting

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

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

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

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

When painting from a reference photo, it’s fair to say that composition is already there for you. But when we paint in the great outdoors, it suddenly becomes very difficult. You have a wide periphera