Week 2 and I've been working on a gentler skyscape which I'm quite pleased with. I must admit though, towards the end of the painting, I was feeling a bit impatient because I wanted to move on to a stronger, darker image. I persevered though and finished the gentle one before moving on. Dave, our new addition to Art & Soul, who is a graphic designer, put Marillion 'Marbles' on the sound system which was dark and evocative. This got me in the zone for the darker image which is to follow. Watch this space......

Hi, welcome to my first artist's blog. I am just returning to being an artist/teacher after several years of making a living in the 'real world' at St Mary's College, Blackburn. I have taken the leap and joined fellow artist Stephen Ormerod in a new venture, Art & Soul, which is a shared studio/gallery space where we can develop our own work, run workshops and publish/promote/facilitate the work of other artists. Following our opening weekend, we are settling into the environment and beginning to get a taste of how it can encourage people to 'free their creative spirit'.

I am revisiting the theme of skyscapes, which were a feature of my earliest soft pastel landscapes (just a few years ago!). This time though, I'm interested in the skyscapes independent of any landscape. I think that they have enough colour, mood, balance and composition to stand alone as subjects for paintings. Also, I think that as far as potential for experimenting with scale, different media and personal expression the skies the limit.

Below is the first of these, completed last week and I will be posting images of further work as it develops so please revisit this blog to see how I get on. Also take a look at Art & Soul and you'll get a flavour of what we're about. (P.S. we have a few things to iron out in the setting up of these blogs - so this is posted by me rather than Stephen, as stated below - I guess Rome wasn't built in a day!)