Happy new year to all my friends and followers! Christmas went rather quickly for me, after being busy with my solo exhibition in the Lansdown gallery I was glad to have a bit of a break too. The exhibition went really well, I was delighted to meet all the visitors and I gained some very positive feedback about my work. Several paintings have found new homes, which is always exciting, and has given me more momentum to continue my work. Here are some photos from around the gallery:

Between visitors, I made use of the lovely light in the gallery and worked on a little piece.

For some lucky visitors, free guided tours were given by Nero, who gave me company for one of the days!

All the paintings on display were painted from the garden, or nearby in the village or fields. I really enjoyed displaying my work at the end of the year, I felt my studies from plein air, thoughts in my sketchbooks and looser applications of the paint has culminated into a cohesive and strong portfolio of paintings. Most of the visitors enjoyed my paintings of apples and roses, and these were paintings that came from charcoal drawings in my sketchbook, which gave a sense of drama in their tonal composition, but as I have bonded with my limited palette over the last year I have made steps in using colour more intuitively.

This little painting was done whilst in the gallery, from a photo a few years ago when we had fantastic snow. I had no idea we had snow predicted just a couple of weeks later and it was like Christmas had come early for me, I’ve been out in the snow sketching away and taking heaps of photographs for future use!

This was done with watercolour pencils and snow. It was an Isaac Newton moment, as I was sat under a tree and blobs of snow fell onto my drawing, and hence the snow painting emerged. I had brought my paintbrush and a pot of water with my, but the pure snow made an interesting effect!

In time for Christmas, I completed and framed this gorgeous oil painting, which was commissioned just a month before month before Christmas. The morning light was bold, intense and vibrant. Watching an episode of Countryfile a few weeks ago, I was delighted to see Stroud featured in their episode! They described why Stroud was named the ‘Golden Valley’, because of the particular golden light, which attracts many artists to the area. After doing this painting, I could see why I was so attracted to painting Stroud and the surrounding areas, throughout all seasons of the year, on a good day the light is captivating.

After the success of my first solo show, I am delighted to announce that I will be exhibiting (solo!) again at the Malthouse, Stroud, from the 17th April to the 18th June as part of the Stroud Sit Select Festival. The title of my show will be ‘Flora and Fauna’ and expect to see more bigger paintings, and look out for me in their catalogue…watch this space!