:playing with pigment:

:why: + :how: 

:my work is like a the best dream:

:delicately balancing heavy pigments with negative space for a dramatic instance: 

it’s a bold statement. but one i stand by

i have been very lucky that my 30+ year career in magazine design has been challenging and fulfilling.

i have had some very proud moments (seeing somebody pick up an edition of SUFFOLK magazine that i designed, flick through it and pop it in their shopping trolley being one of them) (having Conran Design Group use my work to promote a feature about their global ceo being another). but 30+ years of living my life with yet another looming deadline made me realise i need some re-balance. i mean, deadlines are great. you know what you have to deliver, on-time, to very very very exacting standards. time-and-again. day after day. week after week. month after month. year after year. and in monthly magazines you work waaaaaay in advance... we plan christmas in july, and valentines day in october. time passes quickly.

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in 2025 i realised i needed something to balance the deadlines. an escape-hatch from my every day. i like wandering around in nature, daydreaming. so i started taking myself off to go and get lost for a day. i soon realised that passers-by give you ‘funny looks’ if you are just sat staring into space. so i started taking a sketchbook with me. sometimes i would actually sketch – other times i would sit with the book open and just eat pie (you have to eat pie when losing yourself¡)

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and as i sat and stared i started to see beauty that is easily missed when wandering around. to be surrounded in silence; the lapping of a tidal estuary; birdsong. 

the gentle cooling breeze on a hot summer day. 

there was finally very little going on around me. 

but these were my dramatic instances.

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i discovered light is a big part of a dramatic instance.
the negative space it creates literally amplifies everything.

i have used this trick in magazine design my whole career. 

in nature i stated to see landscapes as magazine page with hierarchy... something i have crafted over decades to very very very exacting standards.

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something went click inside.

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pigment, paper and a lot of water came out to play... 
and in watercolours came a freedom that completely juxtaposed my daily world of pixel-perfection. it also enabled my escape-hatch. watching pigment shift, bloom and granulate in front of you makes you forget everything. 

and i mean,  e v e r y  t   h   i    i      i      n        g        .

well, it does for me anyway¡ it is better than a good pie.

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so here we are. about a year into me playing with pigment as an escape-hatch to daily deadlines and very very very exacting standards.

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if you have made it this far through this waffle 
THANK YOU. i hope you enjoy the paintings as much as i did creating them. and if you enjoy them... imagine how good one would look hanging in your home (even if only in the downstairs privvy). if you missed the opportunity of an original drop me note and we can have a chat about print options. or I can just paint you something completely new¡