Painting Diary

In these pages, 'Painting Diary' I'm going to explore some of the delights and challenges of painting outdoors. I simply love painting outdoors. When you are surrounded by the elements and very much ‘in’ the landscape I find you have to really concentrate and work quickly. The light changes around you at quite an alarming pace and with it changes the shadows, tones and colours that you are trying to capture. However this is part of the excitement and challenge of working outdoors. Photographs and sketches are great but they're very static. They have already lost some of the life that I'm trying to achieve.

Over the last 10 months or so I have been challenging myself to try and capture the spirit of 'The Old Masters'. I do not want to sound pretencious but artists such as Derain, Matisse, Monet and Van Gogh spent hours and days painting outside. Surely we can learn from there example and stop making excuses.

If you want to find out more about the skills and techniques of painting outside please follow the link below.

Great ideas and tips to help you paint on location... start your own painting diary.

These pages are really concerned more with why I painted a particular view and how I went about it. In many ways it is my 'artists ramblings' and I really hope you enjoy reading it but above all that you may be inspired to try painting outdoors yourself.