1. Early years

   Painting after hours

   The first landscapes were made on a shared table in a rented flat, mostly at night, mostly small. Coastal studies on paper, drying on the windowsill because there was nowhere else. Those early pieces set the habit that still runs the studio: work from a specific place, at a specific hour, and keep the studies even when they fail.

2. First series

   Committing to the coast

   The Coastal Light series was the point where the work stopped being a set of one-offs. Twelve canvases, one shoreline, a full year of returning to the same tidal flats. Linen replaced cotton because the tooth held the dry-brush passages better, and the palette narrowed to what the morning actually did. Two of the twelve were later released as signed, numbered giclée editions of forty.

3. Wider ground

   Karoo winters, highveld weather

   Three winters spent working from a small caravan between Graaff-Reinet and Nieu-Bethesda produced the Karoo Horizons paintings, most of them two-to-one or wider. The subject there is distance, not incident, and the surfaces are scraped back between layers so the final image carries its own corrections. The highveld weather studies came later, chasing the blue that shows up an hour before rain.

4. The shop

   Making the catalogue readable

   Selling from a studio means being clear about what actually arrives. Every listing now states medium, surface, dimensions and edition size, and the cart lets a buyer combine a canvas with a print or a pack of greeting cards without a second order. Canvas originals ship stretched or rolled, depending on where they are going and how the collector wants to hang them.

5. Now

   Commissions, twice a year

   Commissions open twice a year for collectors who want a particular view or palette. Between those windows the studio keeps to its own series, plus the small Quiet Interiors still lifes painted in the same north-facing corner between ten and noon. They are the smallest works in the catalogue and often the first piece someone takes home.

How the studio got here

Dates matter when you are buying work that was made over years rather than weeks. Here is the order things actually happened in.

1. 2009

   First plein-air studies on the Eastern Cape coast

   Small boards painted between Kenton-on-Sea and the Wild Coast, mostly at dawn. Nothing was sold that year; the point was learning how fast wet sand changes colour.

2. 2013

   Coastal Light becomes a full series

   Twelve larger canvases on linen, finished in the studio from the field studies. Linen replaced cotton because the tooth holds the dry-brush passages that describe wet sand.

3. 2016

   Three winters on the Karoo gravel roads

   Working from a small caravan between Graaff-Reinet and Nieu-Bethesda. Wide boards, a narrow palette of raw umber and ultramarine, surfaces scraped back between layers.

4. 2019

   Prints join the catalogue

   Signed and numbered giclée editions of forty, made from the same scans used for the archive. Numbering and edition size are printed on every certificate that ships with the work.

5. 2022

   Quiet Interiors, painted in one corner of the room

   Small still lifes made from life between ten and noon across a full year, using the same four objects rearranged. Most collectors begin here before moving to the larger series.

6. 2024

   Commissions open twice a year

   Two windows each year for collectors who want a specific view or palette. Each commission starts with a written brief and a set of small colour studies before any canvas is stretched.