OK, here’s the story behind how this painting came into being. I’d bought a 152.4 cms by 50.8 cms (or 60 inches by 20 inches in old money) linen canvas in an art-store sale. I’d had it for ages but didn’t know what I was going...
There were no iPads, laptops or smartphones when I was a kid. Not even colour TV. At the age of 8 my imagination was ignited by comics. I spent my ‘Saturday Sixpence’ on The Dandy, Beano, Topper, Beezer or Eagle. Most were printed and published...
I was eating a raisin cookie one morning and I thought, I know, maybe I should paint this. So, I set about mocking up a still-life arrangement using raisin cookies and changing things, adding stuff and moving things around, as you do. I bought the dark chocolate...
This is one of those paintings I had a glimpse of in my mind's eye before I put paint to canvas. The blown glass bauble was a surprise present. The skull is a souvenir from Bali. I saw it, thought it striking, so bought it. The pink-iced-person...
The Kimberley Desert, Western Australia, circa 1897. This was an inhospitable, arid, unforgiving land where the heat and the flies were constant, unwanted companions. Out there in the outback the likelihood of meeting a young, nubile, lone female was rare if not unheard of! For the...
So, what’s this all about? I, honestly, have absolutely no idea. I do plan my work extensively before putting paint to canvas. In this instance I chose the individual images because I liked them. Why? I have no idea. The image in the top right was originally...
I usually have little idea of how a painting is going to evolve before I start. In this instance I had both the yellow and blue tin-toy robots and the female is inspired by 1940’s American pin-up art (which I've always had a soft-spot for)....
In the 1950’s Hans and Lotte Hass hosted a BBC series, filmed underwater in The Red Sea and The Great Barrier Reef. Back then it was in black and white, colour hadn’t arrived. As a child I was riveted, fascinated, spellbound! And their voice-over commentary was...
This is Oskar. Or Oskie as he's affectionately known. He was around 28 and a half (if you believe the human calculation of canine ageing) when he was painted. We found him in a locked suitcase in a lost-property office. How he got in there and...
I had an old black and white, aerial, ordinance-survey print. Circa 1950s Britain from above. I'd kept it and held on to it for years. Always liked it and thought one day I'll use this for something. And that 'something' turned out to be the background...