I have always loved the sense of escapism that comes with creating artwork. I am passionate about exploring my creativity, constantly looking at developing my techniques so I can keep that feeling of energy within my work. When someone is emotionally moved by looking at my artwork that is a big motivation for me as I have always liked to please people through my painting. My preferred medium is oil paint, I do sometimes create an acrylic underpainting first as I really like the way the oil paint behaves when applied over acrylic. I often dilute the oil paint down with turpentine in the initial stages and use it like watercolour. My Figurative painting is all about depicting the mood and intimacy within a moment, using a loose approach to my brushwork, trying to be spontaneous while carefully considering placement of strong contrasting values to create depth. I have spent thousands of hours drawing figures from life, this has been fundamental to the development of my figurative painting style – mainly because I get to observe directly the little details in body language that can suggest all manner of narrative, my favourite one is that everyone deserves to feel loved. I also teach figure drawing and painting which means I am constantly examining, tweaking and improving the process. My main inspiration comes from being outside, studying people, oceans, landscapes and skies in all weather conditions. I feel I have succeeded when I can look at my finished painting and recall accurately how i felt during the process of painting….a little like re reading a diary. One of my latest projects is about depicting skies and landscapes at altitude, I have a lot of fun exploring the skies in my paramotor, flying above, around and sometimes inside the clouds, the atmosphere and light at several thousand feet can be extremely fascinating and a real challenge to depict with a paint brush.