Sunray Gold, 2022

"Sunray Gold" was inspired by a lovely forest close to my studio in the Peak District. The painting has colours of amber, copper, pink and gold with a mood of optimism and peaceful calm. The light falls through beautiful leaves while the delicate textures created with a palette knife create abstraction in the foreground. An original artwork, one of a kind, this painting has been created with high-quality acrylic paints on deep-edged canvas. I begin with observation of the place, making notes and taking photographs to work from in the studio. From these beginnings, I work intuitively, painting some base layers with a brush and then impasto techniques, layer on layer, applied with a palette knife, harnessing optical mixing techniques employed by the Impressionists and some of the methods of the old masters, such as scumbling and glazing. I continue working until the painting reaches a natural conclusion. The painting continues round the sides, and it is ready to hang.