Artist Newsletter

Welcome to the new website at Peacheysarthouse.com

Over the past few weeks, while quietly rebuilding and refreshing the site, I’ve been adding little notes to the homepage. So… here I am again. Restarting the blog and newsletter. Reaching out to reconnect with those of you who have followed my work for some time — and hopefully welcoming a few new readers along the way.

One thing, thankfully, has not changed: I haven’t stopped painting.

The oil of the sailing boat mentioned a couple of weeks ago is now dry enough to scan properly and is on the website — always an exciting stage. Oils do like to take their time. Ideally, they should dry for six to twelve months before being considered fully cured, but this one was ready enough for a careful capture. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing the finished texture and light preserved digitally, even though the real magic remains in the surface of the paint itself.

At the moment, I’m immersed in a completely new challenge. I’m working on an image spread across three A3 stretched canvas panels, designed to come together as one unified piece. In practical terms, that means I’m essentially creating three large oil paintings at once — so it’s taking me about three times as long as usual!

What makes this project especially intriguing (at least for me) is that it’s neither a landscape nor a portrait. That probably raises more questions than it answers — but I’m going to let you wonder a little longer. The reveal will come in due course.

For now, everything is progressing exactly as planned. The layers are building beautifully, the composition is holding together across the panels, and I’m enjoying the slower rhythm that working at this scale demands.

It feels good to be writing again. Painting and writing have always aligned for me — both are ways of observing, reflecting, and sharing something of the world as I see it.

Thank you for being here, for following along, and for supporting this next chapter at Peacheysarthouse. More updates (and that reveal!) will be coming soon.

SOME THOUGHTS ON PAINTING AND NATURE

There’s a quiet moment that happens just before I begin a new oil painting. The studio is still, the canvas is blank, and outside the window the trees are already at work — shifting in the breeze, catching light, casting layered shadows that no camera could ever quite capture. It’s in that pause that I’m reminded: art and nature have always been in conversation.

As an oil artist, I often feel less like a creator and more like a translator. Nature speaks in colour, texture, movement, and light. My job is to listen closely — to the way morning light softens a horizon, how storm clouds gather in thick, sculptural forms, how wild grasses bend in rhythmic patterns. Oil paint, with its richness and depth, feels like the perfect language to respond.

Nature teaches patience. A landscape does not rush to bloom; a river does not hurry the tide. Similarly, oil painting asks us to slow down. Layers must dry. Colours must settle. Forms must emerge gradually. In that shared pacing, I find alignment. The process mirrors the seasons: building, resting, refining, revealing.

There is also honesty in both. Nature does not strive for perfection — it thrives in variation. A sky streaked with uneven colour a cloud’s uneven shape — these irregularities are what give it life. In painting, I’ve learned to embrace those same imperfections. The visible brushstroke, the unexpected blend of pigment, the blended surface — carries an energy of the moment and makes the work feel alive.

Spending time outdoors continually reshapes how I see. A walk through a forest or along the water’s edge recalibrates my eye far more effectively than scrolling through reference images ever could. Light changes by the minute. Colours shift depending on the hour, the weather, even the mood of the observer.

This alignment between art and nature is about capturing essence. The hush before rainfall. The warmth of late afternoon sun. The quiet resilience of hikers or horse riders When these elements translate onto canvas, something meaningful happens: the vision feels connected — not just to the painting, but to the natural world itself.

In a world that moves quickly and digitally, oil painting remains beautifully tactile. It invites us to pause, to observe, to reconnect with the physical world. And perhaps that’s the deeper harmony: both art and nature remind us to slow down and truly see.

Thank you for being part of this journey where paint meets landscape, and where nature and art continue their timeless dialogue.