I've just returned from a very happy and successful trip to Dublin for a workshop and painting competition. I spent a delightful 5 days painting on location with a wonderful group of people from North Dublin and surrounding areas. 

Over the weekend I took part in 'Painting the Parish', a plein air painting exhibition and competition to celebrate the 150th Anniversary of St Kevin's Church in Dublin City.  

I've been focusing on the use of 'warm whites' in recent weeks. With this in mind, I decided not to use titanium white on my palette for the competition on Saturday, instead I chose warm white, warm light yellow and lead tin yellow lemon as my lightest values. I wanted to capture the warmth of the candle light inside the church. It seemed to work well - my finished painting won first prize in the competition!

As Ambassador for Michael Harding paints, I've been exploring some really lovely new colours in recent months. I'm now uploading some little videos of my colour mixing experiments onto YouTube, there will be some more over the next few weeks...