Click on the image to view the secret contents of my sketch bag. I am forever being asked about the materials I use as a watercolourist. To put the matter to rest, my latest video reveals the secret contents of my sketch bag. In amongst what you'd expect to find, there are two essential items that you would never have guessed.  The revelation came about by way of demonstrating my way of painting landscapes; not from a sterile photograph, but from life.  If you click on the opening image, all will be revealed - from a five dollar bill to a bottle of 1001 Carpet Cleaner.   ..read more

 Roseau, the capital of Dominica, as seen from outer space. The comments in response to a recent news item, “City Facelift to Begin Later This Year” were in agreement that something needs to be done, but they questioned, what should be done and how it should be done. The only thing we know for certain is that the answer to the problem will not be found in a computer-generated preview of Great George Street shown below.   More to real life is the sketch I made of the same street, and from the same vantage point, thirty-five years ago.   Townscapes are my pa ..read more

The Hen House The next video in my series Notes for Art Students will focus on my past work as a painter of landscapes. I say past work, because for the last thirty-five years, it has been the figure that has commanded my attention. But today, as a means of keeping the series up to date, I went out, and painting a picture of my wife's hen house.  In my early days as a painter of landscapes, an onlooker asked, if I was practicing to be a painter. If asked the same question today, I would confess that I am still practicing. No matter what the art form, as artist never stops practici ..read more

Hot on the heels of my last post, the above image links to part two of my videos in the series Notes for Art Students ..read more

  Municipal Rustic. An illustration from Ian Nairn's book Outrage. In the realms of the urban environment, “beautification” is not creating beauty, but cleaning up the mess that disfigured that which was beautiful before we made a mess of it. Ian Nairn highlighted the problem in his book "Outrage". That was seventy years ago, and in the meantime the roots of beautification have multiplied and termites have eaten their way through my cherished copy his book.  Rural beautification is even worse. On my island the verges of a road that passes through the rain forest have been beautified ..read more

  The opening pictures illustrate what the moving image can do best; that is, zooming out from a detail to the picture as a whole. This is what the eye does when viewing a picture. But by way of the camera, I have the advantage of selecting the viewer's starting point. When left to their own devices, viewers invariably begin by convertly focusing on the body parts that are deemed forbidden.  I only wish that I could free my videos from the excessively wide horizontal format of today's screens - be it the cinema, television or handheld device. Paintings in the wide horizontal are ..read more

Today's image is the header of a blog that has had just two brief spurts of life over the last ten years. I am now in the process of resurrecting the notes with sound, vision and the written word: that being a series of art tutorials videos together with a book on the same subject. It will serve as an antidote for those who have suffered an overdose of insipid tutorial art videos. My intention is to put the passion back into art. So be warned, viewing and reading will not be for the faint hearted. I can already hear the scratching of censorous pens. By getting the message across by differe ..read more

Still life by the 17th century Flemish painter Artus Claessens. Still life by Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) The video that I am now working on is about injecting life into still life. But whether it be a still life, landscape or figure, encouraging the majority of artists that post on facebook forums to inject life into their paintings is like trying to resurrect the dead. It is slavishly copying from photographs that puts the nail in the coffin. Working from life is a messy business and the result is not likely to win accolades to the tune of "how sweet". In my real life life-classes, eras ..read more

Click on the image to view. My latest video traces work in progress on sculptures in my series Daughters of the Caribbean Sun. It is the story of a love affair began over fifty years ago when I was seduced by Enzo Plazzotta's sculpture Jamaican Girl and it continues to this day.   ..read more

 In his book The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran has this to say about clothes: And the weaver said, Speak to us of Clothes.      And he answered:      Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.      And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.      Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your skin and less of your raiment,      For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the han ..read more