February Landscape Painting

Art has always been at the heart of who I am. As a child, I spent countless hours drawing - instinctively observing the world around me and learning how to translate what I saw onto the page. That early passion for line, colour, and composition eventually led to a career in graphic design, where I refined my understanding of structure, balance, and visual storytelling. But it was in 2006, after seeing David Hockney’s East Yorkshire landscapes, that something shifted. I felt a powerful pull back to painting - to working directly with light, colour, and form. Over the past few years, I’ve returned to painting with growing intensity, producing hundreds of works as I’ve developed my voice in oils. I’m drawn to the strength and purity of colour that oil paint allows, as well as the richness of texture and movement. The slower drying time means I can work more intuitively - building layers, making adjustments, and letting each painting evolve. My style has become increasingly expressive and gestural, with colour taking a central role in conveying mood, season, and atmosphere. Inspiration I paint the landscapes of North Yorkshire - its fields, skies, trees, and quiet roads - drawn again and again to the shifting light, the sculptural forms of nature, and the quiet drama of the seasons. Most of my work begins outdoors, painted directly from life. I’m always looking for moments when a familiar scene suddenly comes alive - when the light tilts or a shadow falls just right, and something ordinary becomes quietly extraordinary. There’s a kind of immersion that happens when painting outside. With a blank canvas, a fresh palette, and the landscape in front of me, I work to capture something true to the moment - not just the visual reality, but the feeling of being there. The challenge is part of the thrill: the light changes, colours shift, the wind picks up - and somewhere in the midst of that, a painting begins to emerge. What results is often a personal interpretation of place, a record of standing in the landscape for a brief moment in time. As my work continues to evolve, I’m increasingly exploring how colour can express the nuances and subtleties of each season. When it works, the painting becomes not just a representation, but an enhancement - a unique response to the landscape as I see and feel it.