Stac Lee & Stone Circles

More bits inspired by St Kilda and remote islands.

Alfred & Ben

This piece was inspired by a recent visit to the Ingelby Gallery in Edinburgh who a few weeks back had a show of works by Alfred Wallis, Forrest Bess and Frank Walter. I've been a big fan of Wallis' naive paintings of boats and harbours for a couple of years now but going to the show was the first time I'd seen this famous photograph of Ben Nicholson talking to Alfred, most probably about getting him to come to London.

Ladies in Pubs

I'm working on a series of commissions at the moment based on images of people in pubs, a topic I could quite happily work with forever. The bottom portrait is a revisited version of a painting which I did a couple of years ago. I like to go back to works every now and again and try to update them, it always proves to be an interesting insight into how my techniques have developed. I'm pretty sure that the original painting is on here somewhere if you want to compare the two.

St Kilda

I've been reading about an group of islands off the west coast of Scotland called St Kilda. Once home to the most remote of Scottish communities, the island was evacuated in 1930. There's a really nice film about the island on YouTube which I'd highly recommend watching -

Grubby Lads

Two lads who could do to wash their faces. Based on a photograph from an old National Geographic magazine I picked up.

Hello again!

I got a nice email a couple of weeks ago asking where I've been and why I've not been posting on here as often as I used to.
Since starting at ECA three years ago I've kind of stopped using this blog and I'm not sure why. I suppose studying painting and making work on more of a full time basis has changed my approach a bit. I used to make a drawing in my bedroom then immediately scan it and stick it up on here whereas now I'm making a lot more work but it tends to just get stuck to a wall in my studio or filed away somewhere.
I have also been trying to use Tumblr instead recently. I decided that I liked the format and the accessibility of Tumblr more than Blogger but I've come to realise that the tumblr community is nowhere near as welcoming as it is on here. What do you guys think about this?

I owe a lot to this blog; when I first started out, getting comments and chatting to people through Blogger gave me a lot of confidence. I found out about tonnes of artists and illustrators exclusively through looking at blogs and leaving comments. The community I found on here is something I think I've been neglecting a bit over the past few years.

So I've decided to try to get back into the swing of it and to start posting on here regularly. However, if you are interested in seeing what I'm up to on a more day to day basis have a look at my instagram. I tend to take pictures of things I'm working on or just finished and I'm much more likely to post things on there as it doesn't require filling out a big scary text box which can be quite intimidating sometimes.