"They looked towards the hilltop and saw a yellow flame rising against the sky. Too-ticky had lit the bonfire. It wrapped itself in flames at once, from ground to top, it gave a roar like a lion and threw its reflection straight down on the black ice" Moominland #Midwinter, Tove Jansson

“Santa Taking a 'Coffee Break' During NYC Christmas Season," Leonard McCombe in 1962

Working up the face on my ‘Laura’ portrait. #genetierney #filmnoir

Working up the face on my ‘Laura’ portrait. #genetierney #filmnoir

This bit of graphic design just gets more appropriate by the day. #redacted

Dana Andrews pops in for a studio visit…

Katharine Hepburn by George Hoyningen-Huene for Vanity Fair, 1934.

Every time there's a breaking story about a celeb's treatment of women, everyone in the book world asks, "Is it finally Walliams?" Well, it finally is.

Some of the best moments of the past few years have been spent reading books to my girls - Sophie Anderson, Katya Balen, and Kiran Millwood Hargrave are incredible talents amongst many and there are so many great authors for young people, should anyone have a sudden gap on the lids bookshelves.

Margaret Rutherford and Celia Johnson photographed here in the stage version of “REBECCA” taken at The Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, 1940

Starting to feel like Dana Andrews staring at this painting of #genetierney all day. lots of fine details and layers still to do, but she’s coming together. #filmnoir #filmsky

More soft painterliness for 2026, I think.

A pair of Shakespearean actresses on the last stages. Hope to get them finished by the end of the year.

I’m on Christmas holidays from the day job so treating myself to the completely frivolous task of painting a version of the iconic painting from Preminger’s Laura, 1944 #filmnoir

Sketching out a new painting, and this one is just for the pure pleasure of it - Gene Tierney as Laura #painting #filmnoir

All work and no play makes Kristian a dull boy… so off to the Imax tonight…

On the easel. #wip #painting

Faces I’ve painted in the past year.

A quick sketch this evening. Naomi Watts after a fantastic photo by Chris Floyd.

Ambrose McEvoy, The Ear-Ring, 1911 https://botfrens.com/collections/14375/contents/1112764

Obsessed with Hania Rani’s Non-Fiction right now sptfy.bio/nonfiction

The book to which - by chance - I owe my getting back into academia… I love this book.

Newly finished bit of drawing.

A rather loose charcoal drawing after The Coral Necklace by Harold Gilman. I imagine her rather as a character from a Jean Rhys novel, large drink just out of shot. #drawing #jeanrhys

After listening to the second iteration of the @backlisted.bsky.social on All the Devils are Here (Una’s Version?) (the Miller redux?) i’m finally diving in.

How it’s going.

Building up early layers on a new piece inspired by a photograph of Anita Louise as Titania, Queen of the Fairies in the 1935 film adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. #anitalouise #midsummernightsdream #shakespeare #contemporarypaintings #figurativeartist #painting #hair

My painting of Vivien Leigh on her birthday 'Did ever raven sing so like a lark" (Vivien Leigh), 2025. Oil on canvas, 70x60cm.

Folds, in charcoal and matte pencil #drawing

Bedford School Staff & Friends exhibition, PV 6.30-8 7th Nov Show runs until 12 December

An old oil sketch from 2017 that was inspired by an image of Marie Doro, it led to another painting that wa far more realistic. Private collection. #tbt #painting

Work in progress. Where to go next? Balancing detail and looseness, monochrome/colour. #painting

Sometimes I like to little studies of old master works to challenge myself. This is a copy of Odalisque, 1839, by Francesco Hayez I have been working on this on and off since last year and was determined to finish it. Learnt a little from this experience, especially with glazing. #painting

A favourite corner of a painting if mine

This is quite a read!

Saw some amazing art today: 1. Kristian Evju

Leonor Fini (1908-96) summing up the horror of posting on social media perfectly #anxiety

New beginnings

"Every intelligent painter," wrote Abstract Expressionist artist Robert Motherwell in 1951, "carries the whole culture of modern painting in his head. It is his real subject, of which anything he paints is both a homage and a critique, and everything he says is a gloss." #painting

laura palmer / everybody scream

A little acrylic study after David Jagger. i did this when I first started teaching to test out acrylics. Ended up getting lost.

Summer has gone & darkness arrives earlier each evening, the perfect time for ghost stories. Tomorrow at 10pm BBC4 is showing the 1970’s adaptation of The Signalman by Charles Dickens. Here’s an unpublished illustration I made a couple of years back. I love this story, I’d love to illustrate it.

So here’s my studio for the new day job: teaching painting at Bedford School. A beautiful 1752 building that started life as the Bretheren Hall of a Moravian Chapel, became a school( which a young James Gillray attended, the Ladies School, and sold to Bedford in 1921 and became their Art School.

Dorothea Tanning playing chess with Max Ernst, an ink drawing of mine from 2020 #botd 25/8/1910 #ink #illustration #chess

An illustration of Leonora Carrington with Hearing Trumpet quotes, I felt compelled to draw during the 2020 covid lockdown. The Hearing Trumpet is the topic of the new @backlisted.bsky.social episode. #booksky #backlisted #surrealism

It was this, I think that @romanbone.bsky.social remembered recently. You’re right, as first passes go this was good. I seem to remember being very unhappy with how it went after this, no idea why, and worked over it with something else. Maybe it was the frustration of messing up a good start.

There’s two weeks left of the Summer Exhibition at Green& Stone, Fulham Road, London, it’s a great show with so many fab artists involved. My painting ‘In Dreams’ is on display there until 28/8.

I’ve had an evening of sketching small portraits, here’s one of Renée Asherson photographed in 1944 #portrait #drawing

One of my favourite record labels, www.anothertimbre.com has had a gorgeous website redesign and to celebrate they have a 5-CDs-for-£25 special offer. If you’re into modern composition and minimalism there is no finer label.