artist statement

My work has always portrayed a sense of place, whether it be the hills of the west or the fishertown of Cromarty, and this has remained with me since Art School days.

My watercolours are painted ‘on the spot’, so that the changing light and colour can be captured in the moment before being completed in the studio with the minimum of re-working. This technique does not lend itself to over working or leave room for correction of mistakes and so there remains a sense of freshness and immediacy and a boldness in the sweep of the brush.

Both the paintings and prints are mediums that require a high degree of fluency in order to avoid the need for correction, but are contrasting in every other sense. These differences of scale, colour and technique are a welcome change and means looking at buildings or landscapes in a different way. I use lemon or box wood and fine tools to cut into the block, looking down a magnifying glass. The surface is then inked with a roller and printed by hand using a printing press onto printmaking paper. Once the edition is printed the blocks are then re-surfaced for re-use.