My father was an amateur painter, so I borrowed his oil paints from the age of13, he was my greatest influence with his love of the Impressionists and then I discovered Vermeer and Vuillard through my art school-teacher Bernard Dunstan RA. I studied at the Byam Shaw School of Painting in London from 1960 – 64 and was elected a member of the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. I was Vice President of The RP from 2002 to 2008.
Portrait painting is thrilling and totally absorbing but I do find chatting and listening an important part of the process. I particularly like painting my sitters in a setting, be it a lamplit interior, outside with a dog or whatever captures them. I love painting portraits but was as a landscape painter that I received my first award and my one man shows often feature paintings of interiors.