Working methods

From sketch book to finished painting..

I take small sketch-books and my camera to events and locations that are going to provide the essential visual elements of people and horses, the psychological elements of tension and competition, and the physical aspects of speed and power. I spend probably more time observing and drawing what is going on in the collecting ring or the parade ring than I do on the main event. The sketches are very rapid, sometimes I am just trying to distil a certain sequence of movements, or study the way a horse approaches a jump. The lines that appear on the page are less important than the quality of the looking.

Back in the studio, I develop larger drawings on paper, working from the sketches together with the photos I have taken to eventually organise larger compositions on canvas. I generally work on about three canvasses at a time to avoid overworking an image, and a finished canvas usually stands around in the studio for some weeks while I make minor adjustments. Covering a white canvas with some fairly random areas of colour is the first step, and the choice of colour affects the finished painting, as I like to have some thick impasto areas contrasting with a very thin layer of the underpainting.

My sketch-books also accompany me on gallery visits, where I reacquaint myself with interpretations of the figure or of horses from the past. Recent visits have included the V & A where I found some wonderful ceramic Tang horses, The National Gallery, (Rubens, and George Stubbs) and in The British Museum, - the Parthenon frieze. I use a mixture of drawing materials,- pencils of different qualities, some water-soluble, brushpens and graphic pens, and markers. These are all easily portable and offer a range of marks that give liveliness and immediacy to a drawing.

For larger scale monochrome drawings I use very heavily applied graphite on either a Fabriano paper, or on a more textured cotton rag paper. With mixed drawing media, I tend to use a tinted paper, that takes well to both a delicate line, and also broad sweeps of gouache or acrylic paint.