Rocks have been a massive subject for me for a very long time. These are the places where I have had the most intense experiences that I have ever encountered. I have taken two hundred foot, head first falls. I remember jumping from thirty feet on to a small patch of grass that was surrounded by boulders. When climbing, I remember being totally involved in the most minuscule detail within the rock in order to make upward progress. I still hear the sounds of the mountain streams and the sheep. I remember the sun going behind a cloud when I was on a particularly tricky section of climbing. These are intense experiences.

Rocks are the most amazing things to paint. They can form thousands of feet of mountainside or they can form a small intimate boulder. In actual fact, they are hugely complex beautiful things. There are variations in texture. A piece of  smooth rock may have quartz veins going through it. Often the lines on the surface of the rock echo what is going on beneath the surface. The colour of the rock will vary. There may be plants or lichen or moss on the rock. Many of the features are then modified by water running down the surface.  There may be chalk left by climbers. Often, there are huge fault lines running through entire cliffs and beyond that are to do with massive slips in the earth's structure. Beyond that, there is light touching the surface. Shadows that may be deep or just glancing across the surface. Then, there are the wet areas reflecting the cloud of the sky

To make sense of all of this, and convincingly make some kind of coherent sense of the surface and form is the reason that I paint pictures. 

The painting on the right is just started. There is a long way to go.

I love the contrast between these massive boulders and the tiny silver birch trees. There is a lifetime of painting to be had.​

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