Inside the studio
A Morning in the Studio
The studio faces north across a courtyard. Work begins at seven, before the heat, and the first hour is spent doing nothing but looking at what was left the day before.
Nothing is decided before the light arrives. The canvases stay turned to the wall overnight — not out of superstition, but because a painting seen too early in the morning is easy to ruin.
The palette is set once a week and left to dry between sessions, which changes the ochres slowly over a month.
A painting is finished when it stops asking me questions.
By early afternoon the light has moved off the working wall and the day's painting is effectively over. What remains is preparation: stretching, sizing, grinding pigment for the week ahead.