The Leaves Are Singing Still

The image below is one of the extended backdrops I've created using early 20th century studio portraits. It has, I think, a connection with other recent work (below) which I've been making using graphite powder and oil, not only in ...

I used to work quite a bit with oil and graphite and have, in the last few days, returned to this medium. So far the results have been very encouraging, despite being without a studio and so having to work ...

I was recently gifted David Whyte's beautiful book 'Consolations' by a friend in which, for the word genius, he writes: 'Genius is, by its original definition, something we already possess. Genius is best understood in its foundational and ancient sense, ...

I discovered a lovely Japanese word today which describes the very things I've been painting and filming in the woods. Komorebi 木漏れ日 (pronounced kō-mō-leh-bē), means, literally, 'sunlight leaking through trees' and describes the rays of light dappling through the leaves ...

I've been looking at ways of developing work with scrolls and in particular, how to utilise the background of the scroll to compliment the character (the main focus of the artwork). It was whilst looking through some old family photographs ...

Introduction There are many different interpretations of the Geothean (a method of observing as described by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)) method, but the one I prefer to use is that described by Iris Brook in her paper, ...

I like it when I make mistakes, or, as in the case of this painting, it wasn't going the way I thought it would. I'd stuck some inked leaves on the canvas as per a recent painting with the aim ...

A music work in progress the title of which comes from Mary Oliver: "What can I say that I have not said before? So I'll say it again. The leaf has a song in it. Stone is the face of ...

After completing a recent painting (see below), I wondered whether to add colour as per the initial idea, but I liked the painting as it was and was concerned about spoiling it. The consensus among friends was to leave it ...

I'm going to be producing some scrolls using the shadow calligraphy I've created in the woods and having had a scroll made recently, I've been looking at how to take this further, using the whole scroll as an artwork, rather ...

I've started a new painting on an 80cm square canvas which takes the concept of shadows cast by trees in the woods by using actual leaves. These are first dipped in black ink to simulate the black ink brushstrokes of ...

Whilst painting in the woods at the weekend, I also used my shadows notebook, painting some of the shadows which invariably meant the pages stuck together as the ink dried. I like the effect however and in particular the holes ...

The paintings I made at Shotover, using ink, rice paper and calligraphy brushes, are like written characters from an unknown language; a language which is created then lost the moment it is written down. It is the language of the ...

Taking advantage of the beautiful, sunny weather today, I got up at the crack of dawn and drove over to Shotover Wood to collect some shadows. Armed with my drawing board, rice paper, calligraphy brushes and ink, I walked among ...

This post follows on from one I wrote previously on 'Rinsho'. Below are two painting I made in woods in my notebook. With the art of Rinsho, the idea is to practice your calligraphy by copying, from books, that of ...

After my last post I watched a video by calligrapher Tomoko Kawao in which she mentions the practice of Rinsho, where the calligrapher copies the work of ancient masters in order to enhance their own skills. From what I have ...

On Saturday, whilst at Shotover with the kids, I took some time - whilst they were climbing trees - to paint some of the shadows cast by the trees. I started working with shadows like these back in 2017 and ...

I have long been meaning to work from some videos I made back in 2018, using a calligraphy brush and ink to follow the 'text' as it's 'written'. Here are a few of the resulting paintings which I'm pleased with ...

It was almost 5 years ago in 2018 that I made these videos in a forest in Oxford and I’ve always found them entrancing. The play of the shadows across the paper has, for me, the feel of Japanese or ...

Two years ago I shot some video at Shotover Country Park (see 'Writing Shadows') and finally, this weekend, I had the chance to edit the clips together to make a piece entitled 'The Gone Forest'. The piece is something viewers ...

A while ago I made some sketches at Shotover Wood, tracing shadows with ink. Thinking back to these and with regards the work I'm currently making, I looked again at these sketches and applied the idea of the quick, gestural ...

On Tuesday I made my way to Shotover to work on a piece I've been thinking about for quite some time. The piece, about absent-presence, will, eventually, comprise videos of shadows in a wood, a few stills from which can ...