Q & A

Although I will try and answer most questions on this website if you have any specific ones just send me an e-mail and I will try and include it here.

Q. Where do the strange stripy creatures come from?

All my creations show people in my life - be it brief encounters or friends and family, so initially my work developed from a need to capture a personality without resorting to a caricature or a full blown portrait. I started to sketch out basic shapes to represent the head, body etc, and then started to add the key expressive features, but after adding the eyes I realised just how powerful you could make an image just through the subtle use of this one element.

Over the next few weeks I gradually created many variations to show different moods and added ‘body language’ to each character. You will notice on most of my work that the shoulder height changes according to mood – a low shoulder height below the eye level lifts the characters mood to be happier or even excited, where a high shoulder height above the eye level can show a little sadness or even naughtiness!

The ears came next but generally the characters were depicted as one colour and I needed that extra addition to finish the concept, it came from a most unusual source.

For many years we have kept ‘houserabbits’, which are fully litter box trained rabbits confined to the garden and half of the house through the use of child gates, and at the time I was developing the characters we had two big 15lb Vienna Blues. One night I was walking up the stairs and Oscar, the male, was trying to see who was coming and pressed against the gate to look around the corner. The bars pressed into his fur and gave the effect of stripes, this coupled with the big eyes and lopsided ears was the final piece and I raced downstairs (after thanking Oscar!) and added the stripes – from that point on the ideas just flooded out. I do not have a word to describe them as I see them all as the individuals I have based them on, but the best two descriptions I have heard so far are ‘impossimals’ or a cross between a Zebra and a Hippo - ‘Zeppo’s’!

Q. How would you describe your work?

I try and get so many elements into my work it’s difficult to pigeonhole; I’m influenced by everything around me so I suppose ‘observational’ is a good a word as any.

Q. What medium do you work in? Why?

This is normally the biggest surprise; I work in oils, not traditionally thought of as a medium that allows such sharp control but it was a conscious decision to almost give a false look to a traditional medium. I used to work with acrylics but rapidly tired with the quick drying times and also the instant hit of colour. Oils allow you to tease out the luminance, increase depth and evolve areas over time through the use of additives such as Liquin and Sansodor. The downside is each piece will take about six weeks from start to finish but the final look and feel of a piece looks better for it.

Q. Some of the most powerful images seem simplistic in execution - can you run through how a picture develops from idea / sketch / work on canvas?

I work from a basic notebook that I always carry; quite often I will see a scene or hear something that will trigger an image, this I jot down while it is still fresh in my mind and sometimes even title it at this stage. Once I am back in the studio I will then work on the one and only sketch, I like to be as accurate as possible at all stages so the first sketch will always be the last. I use three pencils; a HB, 2B and a 5B and very carefully construct the scene, at this stage I also work out the relationship between the eyes and the rest of the image and add any incidental objects into the composition.

Once the sketch is completed I work on a watercolour version, this allows me to test out the colour relationships before committing to canvas and also try additional effects and backgrounds. Any that I am unhappy with are destroyed until I am left with one watercolour, and it’s from these two images that I start work on the canvas.

I choose the canvas size carefully and begin to sketch using oil pastels to determine the composition following the sketch very carefully, apply smudges of colour to help with the balancing of the piece and looking for a natural sense of form and colour whilst building the light source into the picture, it needs to feel right before I proceed further, I also draw the eyes as accurate as possible; the line of sight has a huge impact upon the final image and I need to get it right as soon as I can. Once completed it is then knocked back a little using white spirit and I start to bring the canvas to life.

Oil paint can be a very evocative and sensual medium, just the feel;, smell and the intensity of colours remind you of the history this medium holds which all adds to the stimulation of the senses when working. I begin with the background pushing the paint into the canvas using my fingers, this allows me to feel part of the piece at a very basic level and the movement of the oil beneath your fingers is very therapeutic giving a degree of speed and allowing spontaneous decisions to occur. The main image is blocked in using large rough brushstrokes then I start to work my way through the brushes gradually getting smaller until the detail starts to appear. The staining effect is created using layers of semi-transparent colour and copious amounts of scrunched cling-film which creates a fantastic texture once removed; rags and brushes are then used to tidy up any areas and to soften edges where necessary. Shading is created using sponges which when used on oil paint mixed with a little Liquin create small air bubbles which leave a very subtle graduation in colour.

For the final details a thin layer of linseed oil is rubbed onto the canvas then wiped off to help with the movement of the brush across the surface, this allows me to work on the smooth sharp curves without any drag on the brushes, glazes are applied and tonal transitions are smoothed and deepened.

Turning a mass of colours and shapes into a picture locked in your mind is half the enjoyment, the other is the fun you get applying layer after layer of oil paint gradually bringing your vision into focus. I always have the viewer at the forefront of my mind, audience participation in my work is my passion and I try to engage a viewer’s imagination as much as possible.