I confess to being confused as to what I should be doing: having made a number of paintings after reading about Lot's wife - this one is called I lay down my burden- I don't know whether I can continue to explore this strand at the same time as my other work arising from looking at the edge of woodland. The reaction to my first exhibition here in France has been very good and people appear to be moved by both sets of stories.

My enforced period of sitting down due to sciatica has at least given me the opportunity to read a lot and I've always found that to be a help in moving things forward. I'm still re-reading back issues of Modern Painters , enjoying them too and whilst on the subject of reading am recommending Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve. Max,my son, and I are on our fifth run through and it is still gripping.

Skies

The skies here are are source of wonder, sometimes saturated with colour , sometimes full of movement. here is one that I made earlier.

Is it me or....

I've been rereading back issues of Modern Painters : for comparison I flipped through the recent issues. There's the difference then.

Some new paintings

I've been looking through my website and determining to change the images - it's time- but this blog seems a more user friendly way for me so for now I'll post a few images here. Meabh went looking for paintings to photograph from my studio and bemoaned the fact that she couldn't find them. I suspect its too late: I hold on to paintings only so long as they are useful to look at. At some point they serve other needs. These three are 80x80cms,on canvas.

grey autumn morning

Everything changes and this painting too underwent change as I needed to simplify and pare down the visual information until a grey morning and the right moment allowed me to do this.

last stand

There is a hill beyond my window, a shallow valley too and the light shifts subtly and dramatically. One gets advance notice of the weather from beyond this hill. However this is a painting, so it can be read as having been influenced by the landscape but also by the passage of time. Time looking and time making, because small doesn't mean fast here.

poplar - summer

Poplar - summer was made over several weeks and is several paintings. This large poplar was never still and has great bulk when buffeted by the wind. I kept returning to this painting and reworking it until the weather changed and it became a different thing altogether.