It feels as though I've barely stopped this year. There have been art fairs, exhibitions, new paintings, new collectors, familiar faces, commissions, ideas scribbled down for later and, somewhere amongst all of that, quite a lot of time spent in my studio actually painting! So I thought it was probably time for a little update from me. A Year of Art Fairs, and a Very Big Thank You I've been fortunate to show my work at a number of art fairs and events this year, and one of th

There is something very different about living with an original piece of art. Unlike choosing a sofa, a rug or a new colour for the walls, choosing a painting is rarely just about whether it matches the room. The pieces we really fall in love with usually make us feel something. Perhaps it reminds you of a city you love. A holiday you'll never forget. Somewhere you lived. A river you've walked beside for years. Or perhaps you simply saw it and couldn't stop thinking about it.

Have you ever noticed how certain colours instantly transport you back to a place you've loved? The brilliant white walls of a Greek island glowing in the evening sun. The deep blue of the Mediterranean stretching to the horizon. The warm terracotta of an Italian village. The soft greys of an English morning or the rich golds reflected in the windows of a favourite city at sunset. Long after we've unpacked our suitcase, those colours stay with us. For me, that's often where a

There are countless beautiful places in the world. Some are famous, some are hidden away, and many are somewhere in between. Yet I've often found that the places which stay with us are rarely the ones featured in guidebooks. They're the places that become part of our own story. That's what I try to paint. Over the years I've been fortunate enough to travel widely. Every destination has left its mark in a different way. Sometimes it's the remarkable architecture of a city, som

A lot of what I create starts the same way, a walk somewhere near water. The Thames near Henley, a harbour on holiday, the way light sits on a wet slipway early in the morning. I don't sketch on site, usually. I just look for a long time and take lots of snaps on my camera and something about the mood of it stays with me until I get back to the studio. The rowing pieces come from years of watching boats move, that particular rhythm, oars in and out, the wake settling behind t