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  As we start to move through winter and desperately long for Spring to appear, the birds seem to come alive again.  If you stand outside at 8am and just listen, you can hear so many species singing.  It helps that I live next to ancient woodland, so am fortunate to encounter so many sounds and sights.  Getting out with my camera to capture these birds in their habitat is one of my favourite pastimes.  I’m not sure why it never occurred to me until now, that I could create paintings from my photographs of birds.

I paint on reclaimed or repurposed surfaces as much as possible – usually wood panels.  They’re primed with gesso first and then I launch straight in.

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I needed a fresh approach to my work and was in need of a new challenge.  As someone who has used and taught with near enough every other art medium, I finally decided to plunge myself in to the world of oil paints.  I naively thought that having experience with oil based printing inks would put me at an advantage – but I was wrong! The mess is inexplicable!

The first element of confusion was the use of peripherals; the mediums, linseed oil and solvents.  I did some research on YouTube and bought as many basic colours as I could justify paying for, along with some linseed oil, medium and a few bars of soap.  I want to be solvent free, so I decided to use a combination of oil and soap to clean my brushes.  It works so, so well! I remain determined to not use any harsh chemicals and be as ethical as possible.

Painting with oil paints is like applying different colours of buttercream to a canvass.  It has a deliciously thick texture, so you can apply it straight from the tube and create layers of colour and depth.  Though joyful, it is also reasonably unforgiving to work with, but I have found a technique which yields the kind of results I was aiming for.
In short; I am limiting my mark making to vertical and horizontal lines of colour.  These are placed strategically and carefully to demonstrate light, shade and form.  By purposely utilising the same 2 square ended brushes, each artwork is visually linked to the others.