Painting is work! Hard work! Next to golf, one of the most difficult things one can attempt to master – the difference in general being that one is rarely declared a master painter (unless posthumously), while the PGA declares at least one master annually. But painting, like golf, is fickle and elusive. One day, you shoot the lights out, and the next, you’re a complete hacker. Some paintings just seem to paint themselves, while others are total dogs that will only see the dark of the trash can, rather than the light of day.

As I am very much an outdoors person, I paint a lot “En plein aire”, a French term for painting outside on location, direct from your subject. Some American painters who are apparently down on the French use the term “On the spotters” instead. The physical act is fraught with problems like changing light, weather, wind, bugs, people - you get the idea. Despite these obstacles, painting in nature offers invaluable lessons that cannot be learned elsewhere. The experience of capturing a scene on location enriches my work, and these lessons are carried back into my studio paintings, enhancing their depth and authenticity. Nature remains my greatest teacher, continually inspiring and informing my artistic journey.

I have always been enamored of the idea of being a painter, the smell of oil paint, the physical process of applying paint to a surface. The problem of creating two-dimensional art from at least a three-dimensional reality is often disappointing. That said, what interests me in motif is the question I always ask – “How would that look in paint?” If I think I can figure it out, I’ll have a go at it. But every painting is a journey, some easier than others, and although I have an idea about how to approach it, the painting at some point tells me which direction it wants to go. Hopefully, I will go with it.