Here is a little detail on the bottom left corner of my current painting, it features spring flowers, a swan, a heron , a robin, a thrush , my favourite Blackbird and a little white dog, the whole painting is much bigger than this, but we can find so much to love in the little things and they are so important. I will reveal more from this painting and its title in the next few days.

I painted this last year for a friend who was very ill and in hospital, I gave it its title after I painted it and then I videoed it with the sublime voice of Emma Kirby playing in the background singing Shakespeare’s Where the Bee Sucks and sent it to her, she loved it. I had no idea at the time that Emma Kirby was one of her favourites. When I look at this painting I smile and remember her as she has sadly passed away.

So when do I know if a painting is complete, I just know it feels right. The hardest thing is sometimes to stop. I wanted to show Winter becoming Spring. I also wanted to show the beauty in the patterns of nature. Let me know how many birds and creatures you can spot! I loved painting this, it took a month to do.

I painted the trees first using a lot of paint and brushes and a palette knife, then days later I added the girl in the anorak with fur round the hood with oil crayon, and thought that she looked a bit like me. It’s such a windy day today and this seemed like the best painting to illustrate it. I did it a while ago, to be honest the painting I was going to feature had not saved to my computer ,or it is hiding somewhere where I cannot find it. I will post that one later

I painted this as the Autumn flowers were blooming, sunflowers, anenomes, dahlias, gladioli and as the honesty pods became silver discs. I have a rule ,if I see something when I am painting it appears in my painting. That’s not to say everything in the painting I have seen, so no lion, leopard, tiger or bear, but I did see a fox, a hare, a blackbird, a swaledale sheep, a dove and a squirel. The title came from my Sister and I love it!

Another image from my painting, I feel that Winter is a time which has its own beauty, with metallic light and frost coating the delicate twisting branches of the trees, and the pink pale copper of the twilight. The silver birch looks particularly beautiful ,so I made her into a maiden. Not quite sure how the tiger leaped into the painting, or the hare. The flow of the paint suggests the way to go on my paintings, if I gaze long enough, I see the light or shadow hitting the paper and a pair of eyes, or a profile appears, and the person or animal emerges. I can however answer exactly where the harlequin came from, a walk in South Park and the diamond shapes just like the harlequin costume on their trunks, and my silver birch maiden needed company.

This is a detail on my January painting a few days ago, the painting is developing all the time it’s a bit like a photograph developing. When I start a painting I never know where it will end, I often don’t have a title, or I do and it changes. There is always a title for a painting when it is complete. My Facebook link did not work yesterday , so I will be posting it again today.

At a time when everything seems bare and dormant, somethings still remain ……

Let the magic begin……