When we think of painting, it’s easy to imagine perfectly blended skies or finely drawn details but what if I told you that some of the most meaningful parts of a painting come from the marks that are uniquely yours and often unexpected?

To me abstracting the landscape is about making marks, tones, shapes and colours to express some of the experience of being in the landscape. How much this looks like an obvious landscape is very much a convention of painting tradition, rather than any thing else.

It may sound like a contradiction – simple but varied – but it’s a common question. When making lots of energetic, chaotic marks, you want your artwork to still make sense and not be too busy. I do this is by using a simple set of tools and a limited colour palette, then mixing how I use them. There’s a quite lot going on in the sketch below, but it feels controlled. That’s because I kept the materials simple.

Oil pastels are a really versatile material and because they can be used on a variety of surfaces, including paper, canvas, wood, and fabric, they offer a lot of flexibility. As you know I use a lot of different tools and media when painting and find it’s always good to keep trying out different things to see if they can add something or create a mark that I find exciting.

Painting on irregular or unconventional surfaces presents unique challenges and opportunities that differ significantly from traditional flat canvases and boards. It forces you to not only think about the image but also the painting as a physical object. The texture, shape, and material of the surface can influence not only the application of paint but also the final appearance of the work. Anything that challenges your normal way of working can enhance your creativity.