@hlinehan.bsky.social how Hugh kept his cool & generosity in the face of the ugly attack from Linihan only goodness knows. The tide went out (I guess without his aid!) & the man was shown to have forgotten his Speedos. Onwards & upwards Hugh!

Treading the same path… Implicitus Silvis, mixed media on cardboard, c. 140 x 132 cms. 2025 Earlier this year I began clarting* together cardboard packaging that - in the way of it nowadays - there’s plenty of in this house.  I had decided to push the Hortus Conclusus paintings into something more…

The calm rational and dignified manner in which the budget was greeted & discussed in the mother of parliaments is a credit to our elected representatives - or not! If we get the legislative assembly we deserve we have been very naughty indeed…

No…the other one… Bouziès Boats...by John Hoyland Following on from my last post something a little lighter (and back to painting) from my recent jolly to the East Coast. We were staying in a lovely property nestled deep in the Suffolk countryside (roughly half way from Framlingham to Saxmundham)…

Caution…sommat serious… Unless you have stumbled across this by accident you expect me to ramble on about painting but today I need to rant...and whilst it connects to the subject, feel free to ignore! Derby's Cavendish Building reported cost £75 million I recently spent some time listening to a…

A cause for a minor celebration… Pleasant Country Aspect no. 40 Drayton oil on canvas board 30 x 40 cm. 2025 If you're a regular reader you'll know about the ongoing project that was called The Heart Of Rural England. This began in 2009 with From The Earth Wealth, the making of a 30 x 40 cm.…

Out & about…again back to Brisons...such a privilege. For the past few days I've been lucky enough to be having this view, across the Atlantic towards the Americas. That said we'd work to do - the upshot of which is that should you have £60/70k down the back of the sofa we would be grateful if you…

Megalopolis… Another trip to The Wireworks Project where Ivan Smith mounts a substantial, richly layered exhibition that makes the most of the cavernous shed’s undoubted qualities.  Indeed the energy and ingenuity required to dominate this space (virtually the only one of its size in the region)…

Excellent Quiet Riot special with @mrkennycampbell.bsky.social & @snellarthur.bsky.social And they even managed to avoid apocalypse now…

Enough already..? The piece above might just be finished...or perhaps not. In the 'normal' run of things (as regards this latest escapade) the cobbled together card with its timber support and its first household gloss brushwork would dry and then go off to the studio for innumerable alterations…

Grinding Fine..? Market Harborough, Pleasant Country Aspect 30 x 40 cm. oil on canvas 2025 Or so the old maxim goes... It's certain that the Harborough leg of The Heart Of Rural England project (blog entries passim) has been grinding slow. My pal Simon dates it very accurately (by the photo…

Bak ‘ome… It's been a while...but I'm not at all apologetic at taking time out to visit the Outer Hebrides for a summer holiday. And whilst week one was variable Scottish weather (often wet & windy) week two delivered for the most part very hot sunny days. Evidence below (Garry beach)... So back…

There’s always one!… Krazy Keyser Korner Geezer, 30 x 30 cm. acrylic on board 2025 So this modest little picture is one of a small number of oddities that pay homage to works that have had a profound influence on my ideas of painting. Sometimes they are effectively simple transcriptions, on other…

Lazy stereotypes being peddled (again) on Oh God...but this time - uncharacteristically - by @nndroid.bsky.social himself. Correct to say that Corbyn never looked likely to be PM but he did secure the biggest number of GE votes since 1997 in 2017 & even his 2019 haul was more than Stumbler's!

The crazy cartographer and Landscape in our time The earliest map coloured in during a school trip to Switzerland in 1968 (age 16) I don't know when I started making pictures by colouring maps in but it must've been nearly 57 years ago!  I don't suppose there are very many from those early years…

Surreal… Merlyn Evans, Tyronnopolis, 1939, oil on canvas There's a terrific painting by Merlyn Evans in a terrific exhibition at The Hepworth currently. Am I alone in being slightly chilled at its date of gestation? It suggests a world in chaos...a base of some solidity (ground and sky in a…

Water. Big up to @mrkennycampbell.bsky.social & Clive Lewis MP. Quiet Riot special on a vitally important issue

Bootiful… The Spring Equinox as seen in Barnsley Barnsley that is. It’s taken a while (very nearly half a century in my case!) to get there. Mind my partner-in-crime Simon and myself only took it into our heads to visit the place and particularly the Cooper Art Gallery about four or five months…

A fool and his money… Hortus Ultra Villum, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cms. 2025 Regular readers will know it is many years since I was daft enough to enter competitions with a fee attached. But the old cliche proves true again...yes I've podded out £30 to enter the John Moores! I guess its the lure…

I’m too old for this! Caution artist at work making a photograph (stage1) Out three days in a row...and I'll admit to needing some 'down time'. Good day last Wednesday with family visiting the Djanogly and Conrad Shawcross's thoughtful and powerful installations, followed by the penultimate…

I've not posted (till now) but here's No. 11 from my Hortus Parvum series...plus a shameless plug for: fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/davids-...

If you can... fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/davids-...