Perhaps because I grew up in the sixties, the era of Arne Jacobson, Ian Nairn and Habitat, I have always appreciated minimalism. Though the rooms I live in are cluttered with all sorts of pleasant detritus, when it comes to what lies within a frame less has always seemed more to me. I started with a very limited palette when I began to paint seriously (in oils) in the 1970s - burnt sienna, phthalo blue and white - and for over a year explored the wonders that those three tubes could produce. In this I was led by the persuasive influence of Lowry, Hockney (a great fan of the phthalos in his early days) and , the minimalist master, Whistler. James Abbott McNeill Whistler made me question how much of anything a picture needs to really work. His great passion was in reducing the variety of tone as a component of a picture. (See Whistler’s Mother - Arrangement in Grey and Black:
Portrait of the Painter’s Mother).This he achieved with an incredibly limited palette and the most economical rendering of his subjects. 
Whistler
|  Hiroshige
| Heavily influenced by the Japanese master Ando Hiroshige, Nocturne in Blue and Gold
Old Battersea Bridge is a case in point. Its also a typical Whistler title and reflects his desire to relate his work to music. Have a listen to La Cathedral Engloutie by Debussey, one of his contemporaries, and you can see the connection. Castle Howard in Blue Castle Howard (detail) I’ve recently been going back to my minimalist beginnings both in paint and print – trying to find simpler ways to render images which might lure one into a maze of complexity. As part of a series of architectural paintings I’m working on I’ve recently painted Castle Howard ( Brideshead for anyone who remembers the excellent adaptation of Waugh’s book). It is an incredibly complex building – a cliff face of elaborate, symmetrical relationships. I’ve worked it up in Indian ink and then repeated washes of watercolour. Two years ago I took a different approach to Fountains Abbey. In that case, rather than becoming entangled in the Gothic surface decoration, I focused on the charismatic silhouette and the soft light of early evening. (See the top of this blog). | The Mickle Coo and the Muckle Coo | Twa Coos | My latest work is a highly reduced pair of screenprints of Galloway cattle. There is a small herd of these in the fields near Masham bridge and I’ve sketched and reduced them to simple shapes, leaving the imagination to fill in the rest. If you would like to see any of the pictures above (not Whistler and Hiroshige, I should point out) they are currently on display at The Gallery, Masham. Into Every Life a Little Rain Must fall, Josie Beszant
The Gallery also has a great exhibition opening Saturday 19th May called Close to Home which features some wonderful work by Josie Beszant, Janis Goodman, Helen Peyton, Rosie Scott-Massie, Angie Rogers, Colin Smithson, Elizabeth Price, Vic Sayers and Wendy Tate. For more details CLICK HERE.To read May’s newsletter on Andy Goldsworthy CLICK HEREFollow me on FacebookFollow me on Twitter
I first came to Avebury in 1965 on a school trip. Although I can’t say my time at Slough Grammar School comprised the happiest days of my life, my alma mater was very good at showing us places that mattered. I remember the feeling of the place was magical, like sunshine after rain, and I felt, in a way that I have come to feel in other special places, that I belonged there. Avebury is a vast stone cirlce containing two small stone circles enclosed by a huge circular bank and ditch. Across the neighbouring fields the remains of stone avenues lead toward the centre. On the neighbouring hills evidence exists of other stone circles. This is often interpreted as a ritual landscape designed for a specific function: to be the stage for a coming-of-age ceremony for our ancestors. (To read more about this I recommend The Avebury Circle by Michael Dames. To order CLICK HERE) The most extraordinary thing about Avebury is that in the middle of all this is a village – a village with a guilty past. Most of the stones survived well into the seventeenth century until they were brought to academic attention by historian John Aubrey. William Stukeley made the first accurate survey of the stones in the mid-eighteenth century but had to observe his study being destroyed before his eyes as local villagers broke up most of the stones for building material. It seems unbelievable that such a great human achievement which had stood, untouched for 4,500 years was virtually obliterated in about twenty years.
Landscape of the Megaliths Paul Nash
Avebury Restored John Piper
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Two Forms Barbara Hepworth
| I have really, really wanted to make a great painting of Avebury for many years and I have failed repeatedly. However recently I’ve got closer to my goal by taking a deliberate step away from reality by working in print. Screen printing forces you to take a simpler approach and the result has been that my stones are becoming more abstracted until I found I had pared everything back to what I loved about them – their incredibly beautiful shapes. Here are a few of the resulting images. Most of these were created for The Bluestone Gallery in Devizes, Wiltshire, which is very close to Avebury. To visit their very nice website CLICK HERE.  Avebury 1
4 layer screen print
 Avebury 3
4 layer screen print
|  Avebury 2
4 layer screen print
Cairn
4 layer screen print
|  The Gallery in Masham, North Yorkshire which is the main outlet for my work, has a lovely new website. To pay a visit CLICK HERE.
 There are still some places on the course I'm teaching at Artison about A Contemporary Approach to Watercolour. Friday 18th May 10 am - 4 pm Watercolour frequently suffers from an undeserved reputation as a pale, washed out medium. Contemporary watercolour artists, however, are exploring vibrant new ways of creating results rich in colour and texture and this course looks at some easy ways to take these ideas into your work. To book a place CLICK HERE
 To visit my Facebook page CLICK HERE. You can also sign up for my monthly newsletter from this page, full of information about art history, exhibitions, art courses and book reviews.
My interest in the details goes back a long way. I can remember when I was very small losing myself in the patterns on my Aunt Belle’s china, looking at the cast iron coal hole covers on the pavement, following the swirls in the paisley carpet designs.
Along with the smell of damp and the dust motes floating in the air the things I remember best from the long hours in church were the carvings on the medieval screen, the worn encaustic tiles on the chancel floor and the graffiti bitten deep into the choir stalls by previous generations of the bored. Of the interminable sermons not a word ever stayed with me.
I spend a lot of time drawing and painting buildings. I usually start by getting to know the silhouette but it’s the details that draw me in.
Looking back through my photo files I’m amazed by how many times I seem to click the shutter on something small, but amazing. Here is just a small selection.
 The next art course I'm teaching at Artison is: A Contemporary Approach to WatercolourFriday, 18th May 2012 Price: £65.00 Watercolour frequently suffers from an undeserved reputation as a pale, washed out medium. Contemporary watercolour artists, however, are exploring vibrant new ways of creating results rich in colour and texture and this course looks at some easy ways to take these ideas into your work. By the end of the course will be able to: - Mix and use watercolour in a variety of ways - Incorporate different media for different effects - Plan paintings which move away from traditional styles - Develop an awareness of directions in contemporary watercolour To book CLICK HERE
 Fountains Abbey, Late EveningWatercolour Framed Size: 28" x 21" Currently on sale at The Gallery, Masham To enquire about this painting CLICK HERETo visit the NEW Gallery website CLICK HERE
“The world's an ugly place; you need to brighten it up whenever you can.” Damien Hirst Damien Hirst left Goldsmith’s College in London in 1989 with a clear-eyed vision of his future. He had a list of the people he needed to court, a strong sense of his own identity ( a Mockney accent and a penchant for wearing black and white) and a few reheated ideas from the likes of Duchamp and Warhol. Now, with his enormous exhibition currently at Tate Modern we can all see how it's turned out. I think one description of Hirst which is highly relevant is “the artist we deserve”. He is the artist of the Ikea generation, the credit bubble, the age of celebrity – his work is quick, slick, sometimes beautiful and available in virtually every size and colour. Like Andy Warhol he embraced a “factory” approach – the endless spot paintings, for example, churned out by teams of painters and then by digital print - but, unlike Warhol, had little or no involvement in the final work. A signed, mechanically printed, reproduction of one of these extremely arms-length masterpieces can be yours for £20,000. (That’s right – a piece of paper which has been run through a computer printer of an image Damien didn’t paint will cost you twenty grand). And there it is: the point every conversation about him arrives at - Hirst equals money.
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst (1991)
But is that all? I don't think so. Nearly every idea Hirst has put before us has some merit: facing a shark head on is to go some way towards imagining your own death, the soothing colours of sleeping pills in a medicine cabinet invokes the lethal attraction of endless sleep, a hypnotic mandala of butterfly wings leaves you stunned by the glory of nature. But. for me at least, once the first thrill is gone there is just the dull emptiness of repetition and the distant ringing of a till.
I would certainly advise anyone who wants to see a terrific lesson in the history of modern art to go Tate Modern and see Hirst’s artistic life on show. Its on till September and you may be moved in ways you don’t expect.
Most artists want to make a living out of our art but most of us are driven by the urge, the joy, the obsession of creativity - by the constant refrain that there is more to say and a better way to say it. I feel, however, that all poor old Damien has driving him onward these days is the empty thrill of a full wallet.
Damien Hirst's Solo Exhibition is at Tate Modern, Bankside, London from 4 April 2012 – 9 September 2012
A comment by Banksy on Damien Hirst's spots.
I began painting buildings a very long time ago. I’m fascinated by how everything fits together, how the shapes and surfaces reflect the light and create the shadows and how the silhouette works against the sky.
 Durham Cathedral from Western Hill, Watercolour
I fell in love with Durham Cathedral the minute I saw it from the train that was taking me to my interview for Neville’s Cross College in early 1973. Passing over Durham viaduct the city was suddenly revealed – houses, churches and trees crowned by a castle and an iconic cathedral. John Ruskin, the great Victorian critic, called the view from Durham Station the eighth wonder of the world – and this from a chap whose house overlooked one of the best views in the Lake District.
Durham Cathedral from South Street, Mixed Media
Some of the very first paintings I ever made were of this building for the simple reason that they were painted for the Cathedral bookshop. I lived in several places in Durham - Neville’s Cross, Potter’s Bank, Crossgate, Gilesgate – and from each point found that the cathedral reveals a different character. Durham is unusual for being a complete Norman cathedral – a tour de force of dogtooth arches, barrel vaulting and round-headed windows – where most British cathedrals are a collection of building styles depending on whatever look was fashionable when some money was available. Durham was built to house the shrine of St. Cuthbert, whose much-travelled coffin rooted itself to the ground here. The monks who had been carrying Lindisfarne’s premiere saint around for 120 years (on and off) were probably glad to finally put the coffin in the ground and he still lies at the heart of the building.
Durham, Screenprint
I get a lump in the throat and a tear in the eye whenever I go back and I must have painted the great church dozens of times but I still find things about it that make me pick up my brush again. In Notes from a Small Island Bill Bryson says: “If you have never been to Durham, go there at once. Take my car. It's wonderful.” I couldn’t put it better. The paintings shown are all available from The Gallery, Masham. CLICK HERE for details Artison are currently taking bookings for my painting course: A Contemporary Approach to Watercolour on Friday 18th May. For details and to book CLICK HERE
 Penhill from Great Whernside, watercolour. I’m working on some ideas at the moment for my exhibition in July 2013 about the Yorkshire Dales and I’m doing a lot of reading. Apart from collections of Dales stories I’m reading an excellent book on Yorkshire geology. The special character of the Dales is closely associated with the limestone beneath. When you’re walking in the hills the evidence that this was once the floor of a sea is evident in every fossil-studded rock. For an artist, however, it is the more recent legacy of the ice ages which lends the skyline its character. Four hills in particular: Penyghent, Ingleborough, Penhill and Addleborough owe their distinctive profiles to a combination of smoothing ice flows and hard layers of underlying rock giving the flat-topped, step-sided horizon which typify the Dales and make them such a pleasure to paint. Of these four, Penhill holds a special place in my heart. It’s in view most of the time when you’re travelling in Wensleydale, where I live. It is a lovely climb, with fantastic views from the top and it’s a hill of stories: - the legend of the Penhill Giant – a maiden snatching, cow-munching psychopath whose grave caps the summit.
- the tumbled down beacon thought to date from the threat of the Spanish Armada 500 years ago.
- the strange tracks cut into and around the hill made by drovers, traders, monks and possibly by the Brigantes tribe who once ruled the Dales before it was England. (They made Tor Dyke – a big ditch cut across the top of neighbouring Coverdale).
Here are some paintings done over the years of my favourite hill along with an excerpt from a recent poem, written for the forthcoming exhibition.  Penhill, Evening, watercolour |  Penhill from Grinton Moor, watercolour |
To enquire about any of the images on this page, please CLICK HERE On Penhill
Always on the skyline of my life for two score years now,
Seen from a train, a distant castle, a motorway,
From a road rolling in the belly of the dale,
From ship shaped village green,
From beyond the torn walls of a ruined chapter house
The hill, prow lifted to the east,
Sails against the sky.
Rising from the sculpted ordered Georgian bridge
By hand hewn hedges smooth as hounds
And lifting to the racehorse rumbling high moor
The symphonic heft of Wensleydale behind, beneath,
And suddenly the sky is close above us.
 Ripon Cathedral from Studley Royal, Limited Edition Print. Art course coming up ...There are a few places left on Top Techniques in Watercolour - a course for everyone interested in painting in watercolour - at Artison (near Masham, North Yorkshire) Thursday, 5th April. The course, which will focus on a variety of very effective techniques, costs £65.00 (which includes an excellent lunch). CLICK HERE to book.
Helvellyn, Ian Scott Massie
"Artists are people who say I can’t fix my country or my state or my city, or even my marriage. But by golly, I can make this square of canvas, or this eight and a half by eleven piece of paper, or this lump of clay or these twelve bars of music, exactly what they ought to be." Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut understood the artistic mind very well. In his novel Bluebeard about the fictional abstract expressionist Rabo Karabekian he lifts the lid on the life of an artist and the tension that exists between control and liberation in every media. The Old Man of Coniston, Ian Scott Massie
In watercolour great results are frequently born out of happy accidents, and so it is one of the most divisive media. At one end of the scale are the purists who dislike compound colours such as Paynes Grey (a neutral tint originally made up of red, blue and yellow), and abhor the use of white or black. At the other end (a district in which I am happy to reside) are the experimenters for whom anything is fair game – inks, gouache, acrylics, wax and so on. Both approaches can produce great results, because both camps include people with great artistic ability and vision. Both also represent an ever-present divide between those who strive for complete control and those who wish to be unconfined. Dallowgill, Ian Scott Massie
I am setting out to reconcile both groups through a course I’m teaching at Artison next week called Liberated Watercolour and I’m going to try a few ideas in which there is an element of control which the artists can then deliberately undermine. The thinking behind this is that many artists want to break from their self-imposed degree of control while others find that an unstructured approach comes all to easily and often want to find ways to repeat the happy accidents which befall them. I'll be letting them explore what happens when you just let the paint do the work, but also ways to intervene and channel the developing picture. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the end result allowed someone to echo Kurt Vonnegut’s wonderful words and, by losing control, find the right picture? To book a place on Liberated Watercolour CLICK HERE To join my 4 week course in Working With Watercolour CLICK HERE
One of the most frequently found terms in contemporary painting is “abstracted landscape “. Its one of those terms which could mean almost anything, but this is an illustration of what it means for me. This is a painting I made a few years ago after a moving visit to Wasdale Head. Wasdale is a small valley in the Lake District in North West England. It holds the remarkable lake of Wastwater - its surface two hundred feet above sea level and its bottom 50 feet below. The painting is of Wasdale Head, home to the Wasdale Inn and the starting point for many climbers of England’s highest mountain. In the valley bottom is St Olaf’s church. Its roof trusses are reputed to come from Viking ships. Inside are small memorials to climbers who have died on mountains all over the world and many are buried in the graveyard. The inscriptions of their untimely deaths make very hard reading. We came here because we have an old Turner print which was found in Masham and we were looking for the place where Turner made his picture. We found it. Afterwards we had quiet, reflective beer in front of the fire in the slate-floored inn. Some places have so much personality a realistic painting of surface appearances would simply be not enough. So this became a landscape painting abstracted by experiences and emotions and, to help me find some of those things, I wrote a poem at accompany my sketches. The rest came from colour and movement and my thoughts as the painting came into being. I don't ask what the elements of the painting represent - they just came out that way. But I know it means to me the time we spent at Wasdale Head. Wasdale Head Deep into shadows under the hill To the heart of the rain And scumble of the falling water To the bright-fired and slate-floored bar. Wood smoke and fresh coffee In the first chill of autumn And then the path drawn upwards Into the painting Until the contour lines And engraver’s furrows Absorb us. If you'd like to see Peter Hicks - one the greatest of landscape abstractionists - in action, CLICK HERE
Racehorses are a subject I return to again and again. I find the combination of beauty and power just wonderful and always have since first going to the races at Kempton Park in my late teens. The first image I put into print was a picture called Winning in about 2005. It was by no means my first horse picture but I felt I had finally captured the feeling I was after.
The only other horse image I have put into print is Racing Green which now coming to the end of its edition - just a few left. Both pictures include the rails which, along with other formal elements of the course – starting gates, stands and furlong markers – act as a foil to the primal power of the horses.
Following a commission for a new racehorse painting, I’ve recently begun looking for new ideas for racing pictures. Here’s recent study.
If you're interested in seeing, or commissioning any racing pictures contact The Gallery, Masham by CLICKING HERE.If you’re very quick you can still hear my interview on BBC Radio Yorks from last week. Its on iplayer till Sunday. CLICK HERE to listen. Art courses I'm teaching at Artison in the near future:  Exploring Acrylic InksFriday, 24th February CLICK HERE to book a place.
|  Liberated WatercolourFriday, 16th March CLICK HERE to book
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If you want to receive my Newsletter, follow me on Twitter or see my Facebook CLICK HERE for my Home page.
Dunstanburgh Castle, Northumberland
I've been going through a few acrylic ink paintings recently because I'm teaching a one-day course on this medium at the studios of Artison, just outside Masham, in Wensleydale, North Yorkshire.
The course is on February 24th and what I hope to do is show a whole range of techniques which exploit the potential of this terrific medium.
Winter, Commondale, North Yorkshire
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The Treasurer's House, York
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Acrylic inks are a perfect crossover medium. They create inpervious surfaces in rich colour, like acylic paint, but can diluted and applied like watercolour. They can create intricate textures and will happily combine with other watersoluble media, like gouache.
Here are a few of the pictures I've created with acrylic inks over the last few years.
Stamford, Lincolnshire
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The West Door, York Minster
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Racehorses
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As you can see the colours are amazing and the textures varying from the subtle to the visually dissonnant. If you'd like to book a place on the course click HEREIf you'd like to see more of my work featuring acrylic ink go to The Gallery, Masham, North Yorkshire, or visit their website by clicking HEREAnd if you can't make the course but would like to try acrylic inks my recommendation would be for the wonderful range made by Rorher & Klinger of Leipzig. You can visit their site by clicking HERE
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