After a week of steady mizzle, the skies cleared, and it felt like the perfect autumnal day to head off and explore the nearby island of historical St Michael’s Mount in Marazion.

Nestled on top of a rocky hill, surrounded by blue water, it truly is an incredible sight, even as we approached by road: a medieval church, ancient castle and a family home rise impressively out of the sea.

As we negotiated our way through the old town of Marazion and along the slipway, we went past this super cute cottage with the hand-painted door weathered by the sea air.

At low tide, a historic stone path is revealed like magic to link its harbour to the mainland. Used by pilgrims in the Middle Ages and visitors today, we were lucky enough to time it perfectly for a low tide foot crossing. This is a low angle view of the causeway, and I love the pattern on the rock that has been eroded by the waves up to the stones of the pass.

St Michael’s Mount has been a holy place since the 5th century; during the Middle Ages, it was a religious retreat and a garrison, and these precariously uneven Pilgrims Steps were the only way to access the summit! The castle dates from the 14th century, in 1659, Colonel John St Aubyn bought the Mount, and over the next three generations, his family converted the fort and church buildings into an elegant family home. 

Along one of the narrow passages in the castle, I spotted this fab portrait of Lady St Levan by De László. There were some really great gestural brush marks on the face, it felt like it had been sculpted by the thickness of the paint.

Philip de László was a contemporary of Sargent and Zorn and used the sight-size portrait method and captures a real presence. The pearls are painted with a real sparingness of mark, a translucent underpainting with thick white impasto highlights on top that reveal themself as pearls the further you step back from them.

Joshua Reynolds, Portrait of Sir John St. Aubyn, 5th (1758-1839), Oil on Canvas half-length, in a dark coat and neckcloth

There is a wonderful portrait of the 5th Sir John St Aubyn by Joshua Reynolds hanging in the Blue Drawing room.

It has a similar value balance to the De László, using a very dark foreground and background to help highlight the face. There is a paleness, almost grey tone to the skin, brought to life by the blush of pink hues on the cheeks. The white neckerchief draws our eye to the face, and it’s amazing how close in tone the background and the jacket are, yet we still perceive a difference in space behind the sitter.

Pro tip: If you’d like to learn more about Grisaille portraits and coloured glazing, you might be interested in the Oil Portrait Glazing Course.

Interestingly this original has recently returned to St Michael’s Mount, where it is on display for the first time in over 200 years. The current St Aubyn family successfully bid at Christie’s, as previously a copy hung in its place painted by renowned Cornish painter, John Opie.

This is a view down to the harbour looking out from the edge of the castle, and the organic pattern of spacing you get between the boats from this distance reminds me of stones in the sand.

This is right down next to the boats, and I really love the way that the sky was reflected into the sand, and you get this lovely muted blue hue. 

If you also look into the shadows cast by the boat, you have a nice cool blue hue. This is balanced against the warm yellow ochre on the rocks in the foreground. You’ve got a very similar colour to the back of the boat and a little bit of warm wood on the edge. This would be great to accentuate the turquoise colour on the side of the boat.

A touch of green gold on the seaweed and we’d be away!

Fishing boats at the entrance to the castle, taken later that day, and you can see the water, just coming in behind. 

The sun had moved to backlight St Michael’s Mount to give this amazing strong silhouette, if you’ve read my recent article on the blog about Notan design you can see how images like this lend themselves so well to it.

This elevated view is taken from within the terrace at the Godolphin Hotel (epic St Austell Bay Mussels too!) which is the perfect way end to a day and take in the view. You can just see in the distance how the water is covering up the far end of the causeway, as people scramble back onto the beach before the sea swallows it up again!

The first painting I remember having an immense amount of pressure to get right was in my GCSE art exam.

For the final piece, I had moved into new territory and arranged my own setup of objects in front of my easel.

I thought a still life would be the easiest choice for a timed study.

It felt doable and I was too nervous to tackle a portrait. I also knew there were a few rules I should stick to.

A harmonious colour palette, good placement of objects and strong directional light.

After moving a vase, a bottle of wine and a bunch of grapes around for a little longer than anticipated, I reckoned I should just get on with it.

And some aspects of the finished painting worked ok, they really did.

My drawing wasn’t bad and the composition balanced but the hardest job was judging the colours from life. The light kept changing, I remember desperately trying to block off bits of the window and the immense pressure to create a ‘finished piece’ really lost all the logic and joy of observation.

I know we don’t often find ourselves in art exams, but the same pressure of having to make a great painting every time we pick up the brush often results in unfinished work or worse, unstarted work!

I’ve found the best way to get around this and bring spontaneity back into my studio is to try and paint daily.

Do a quick small study of something I already have lying around the house, try a new technique, colour palette and subject with no expectation.

Just thoroughly engage in the process.

15-min sketch of garlic onto Raw Umber & Titanium White Ground.

45-minute total painting time.

New! Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course

Have you ever fancied trying Traditional Oil paints but the thought of using strong-smelling solvents in a small room put you off?

Then you might find that Water-Mixable Oils are a perfect balance – the blending time of oils with the super easy clean up of water.

Water-mixable oils are real oils, they are water mixable, not water-based. They can be mixed and applied using the same techniques as traditional oils but whilst wet they can be removed from brushes and palettes with soap and water rather than using a solvent.

Don’t water and oil repel each other?

Well, yes they do. But water-mixable oils have an added ingredient that acts as an emulsifier, so the oil droplets are suspended within the water.

Water-mixable oils are relatively new to the market so I wanted to create this new Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oil Painting Course, to address some of the most commonly asked questions and help aspiring oil painters understand the theory and practice of painting in this medium.

Water-mixable oil paints can be mixed with water, low odour mediums or natural drying oils so if you paint in an enclosed space without good ventilation or you’ve developed a sensitivity to turpentine, working in a fume-free painting environment makes them really appealing.

They have a lovely buttery consistency, a long working time which enables you to make changes over a longer period of time, blending colours, adjusting shapes, or working wet-into-wet with thick impasto marks.

What does the Water-Mixable Oil Course Cover?

On this course, we’ll cover the best oil techniques to use, the different mediums and levels of sensitivity of some products that have been specially developed, so you can take a safe approach for you.

With over 5+ hours of tuition, you’ll slowly and methodically be introduced to the theory and practice of painting in water-mixable oils.

The course covers materials and setup, absolute beginner basics, moving on to more advanced classical oil painting methods from underpainting to impasto. I want you to fully understand fat over lean, know when to work alla prima or indirect – practice palette knife techniques and introduce classical oil mediums.

And also oils can get messy! So throughout this course, you’ll see me demonstrating clean working methods.

You’ll complete 3 paintings tutorials, with downloadable reference images for you to work along from and each look at different techniques and methods. I show every stage from drawing out, colour mixing, brush handling and edge control, always being aware of the handling of the paint, drying times and toxicity.

• The first is an impressionistic alla prima cloud study where we compare and contrast acrylics and water-mixable oils.
• The second is a master copy of a section of a Vermeer painting ‘The Little Street’ where we build it up in layers with an indirect approach so I can demonstrate the fat-over-lean principle.
• Our final study is a classical still life painting bringing all the principles together, working through the underpainting, colour mixing to creating form and edge control.

Designed with the Acrylic Painter in Mind

If you’ve ever painted in acrylics and have struggled to achieve lovely smokey blends because the paints dry too quickly – then using water-mixable oils will make the blending process so much easier. And this course has also been designed with the acrylic painter in mind.

We look at how water-mixable oils compare to acrylics, the pros and cons of handling and opacity and how the speed of acrylics drying can be used to your advantage in underpainting, blocking in and canvas preparation. Utilising the best of both worlds.

Sensitivity to Solvents

Because there are varying degrees of sensitivity to consider from painters with multiple allergies and asthma – to painters who can tolerate low odour solvent or others that work in a well-ventilated studio space, I’ve designed this course bearing 3 different levels of sensitivity in mind.

1. Hypersensitive with allergies – We create a completely solvent-free painting, just diluting with water and oil
2. Less sensitive and can tolerate low odour solvents – We mix our own mediums using a low odour water-mixable thinner
3.  Low sensitivity/paint in a well-ventilated room – Discover advanced pre-mixed mediums you can use to manipulate the drying time of the paints

Over 5+ hours of tuition

This is a simple, easy-to-follow downloadable video course with over 5 hours of tuition where you will discover the essentials of how to create an oil painting aimed at the absolute beginner.

It has been designed as a step-by-step rounded learning experience bringing together all my knowledge as a student, painter and teacher.

What’s in the Course?

• 3 x water-mixable oil paintings demonstrations taking you step-by-step from drawing, mixing and matching colours through to the final brush strokes.
• 9-downloadable video lessons, split into separate chapters that follow on sequentially.
• Over 5 hours of detailed video instruction so that you can follow along at your own pace.
• Downloadable reference jpeg images, line drawings, and a full materials list.
• Lifetime access, downloadable on separate devices.

So why don’t you grab a brew, maybe a couple of biscuits and join me on this New Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course and discover your inner oil painter!

New! Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course

p.s Let me know if you have any more questions about the course and I’ll add them to the FAQs

Every few weeks, I share my top art inspirations that I’ve read, experimented with or listened to. Here’s this weeks edition of things I’ve enjoyed, with the hope they might inspire your own work too…

I’ve enjoyed watching:

TED Talk: Do Schools Kill Creativity – Sir Ken Robinson

In August 2020 Sir Ken Robinson sadly died. His TED talk was one of the first I enjoyed when I stumbled across TED nearly 10 year ago. It was a funny, heartfelt and poignant message on the way that schools can kill creativity in children who don’t quite fit the standard academic mould.

‘For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail – it’s just the opposite – we aim too low and succeed.’ – Sir Ken Robinson

I’ve enjoyed listening to: