To start a painting, first I must find something which inspires me to paint. Sometimes I feel like I have an endless list of ideas in my head of what I want to paint and other times there is nothing that inspires me. I can look at a scene one day and see nothing and then look another day and be really excited about it. I guess it depends on my mood.

More often than not I will work in the studio but I do also try and paint plein air (outside from life) when I can. If I am working in the studio I will always have photo reference. I may be working from several photos to create the painting that I want to create. The reason for the photos is not to copy them exactly but to ensure that I create something that is believable. For example if I want to paint a boat or a horse it would be very difficult to do that accurately from memory so a photograph helps with proportion and seeing how the light and shadow describe the shape of that object.

A camera can never pick up all the details in the scene because of the way that they narrow the value range. Working plein air for me is a very different experience but it does help to see things that I would miss if I only ever worked from photos. Last summer I spent many an evening painting in my garden, sometimes until midnight. The purpose was to try and paint the affects of artificial light at night. The lessons I learn when painting plein air will then help me in studio paintings.

I usually carry my camera with me when I am out and about so that I can photograph scenes that I might want to paint at a later date. I have a Canon Powershot SX70 HS which I like very much. I save my photos to reference files, for example I have a file for birds with sub categories for different types  of birds. If I feel like I want to paint a Tui I can then see if any of the photos are going to help me to create a believable painting of a Tui.

Sometimes I will go out with an idea of a painting in mind and so I go out with the express purpose of getting reference photos for that painting. Other times I have no painting in mind and I photograph anything and everything never knowing when that reference might come in handy.