My Art Journey

Wide open skies and the vastness of the landscape are at the core of my painting practice. I hope you feel the freedom I experienced in the moment when you look at my work. But it wasn’t always like that.

In the beginning

In the beginning I sketched the mug when I had a cuppa, or the table and chairs, whatever I could see in the room.

I was a predator of objects I could draw when I took a break, or sat still long enough when we were out and about: a phone box, road signs, electric heater in the office, a stack of bricks and a shovel.

I followed the Drawing & Sketching ‘manual’ to the letter as I thought I had to learn to draw the art I liked looking at.

It took me a long while and a lot of frustration to pinpoint that joy in the process of drawing was the clue to follow.

I am a big fan of Urban Sketching. I love the idea, admire the skills. It fits in neatly with my love of travelling and being in the moment: sketch what you see as a metaphor for smelling the roses. 

Except I felt no joy in the process – let alone the outcome – of sketching objects or urban scenes involving perspective.

How many things do we do because we don’t question them? I followed the beginner’s drawing books, learn to draw a chicken, a farm house, a bunch of people having coffee at a terrace. The idea is to have a go of course, find out for yourself if you’re enjoying it.

And if there’s no joy in it, keep looking for that spark. It’s there somewhere.

The spark was my clue

The spark was my clue: from the landscape paintings and photographs I admired in galleries to the odd landscape module in a workshop, to the covert landscape sketching I did on trips (car journeys, flights, holidays, closer to home).

I eventually got the hint that my intuition had been dropping:

You’re happier drawing landscapes than mugs!

Talking with other artists, it’s amazing to realise how common it is to put ourselves in that situation of doing what we thought we needed to instead of listening to our intuition about our own art.