Religion made me; what made you? Painting

I am an English artist living in Granada, Spain, where I have been since 2005; before this, I spent 2 years in Malaga. I came to Spain in the summer of 2003 with the express purpose of dedicating myself to painting. This I have been fortunate enough to be able to do, without interruption, since then. The road I have followed has been one of the "self-taught school". This school is a tough one. There are few shortcuts to progress on this road, and much trial and error. And so the road has been far from straight; it has often twisted and turned, and sometimes I have left it altogether. However, I have worked relentlessly - and have thus far been blessed with the will and inspiration to do so - and so advances have been made. Where does my inspiration come from? This is a difficult question to answer. The simple answer would be just to manipulate paint: colour, line and texture into an aesthetic that one finds pleasing. But there is often a will to express something in there somewhere too. I paint both human figurative works as well as landscapes. I am also interested in decorative work and portraiture. While my main choice of media at the moment are oil, watercolour and pastel, I am keen to experiment with new media as well as mix media.. Who am I as an artist? Simply: one who seeks to paint whatever inspires me next. Inspiration, or the will to paint something, is a gift, and something to be grasped and appreciated if you are blessed with it. My aim, if I have it, is then to convey the essence of the subject I'm painting, whether that be human figure, structure or landscape. You can see pictures in this portfolio from my early feverish days in Malaga (2003 - 2005) right up to the present day. I have deliberately left pictures in the galleries that give me varying degrees of satisfaction because, above all else, they represent those all-important staging posts I referred to earlier.