I draw with pencil, for only pencil perfectly captures the quality of line and value in portraying my urban compositions. My deep passion for and years of experience drawing make composition intuitive and instantaneous. I paint with oils, for oil alone has a transparent quality that allows the painted light and shadow to shift as if the sun was moving across the substitute sky.

I drew as soon as I could hold a pencil, but I added colour to my work only later in my art career. I took up oil painting because, in my mind, it was the most “serious” medium. It was only with experience I discovered oil was indeed the only way to achieve the effects of transparency and blending essential to express my style.

I loved painting, but I missed drawing, and would often create incredibly detailed “sketches” in preparation for painting. These sketches were finished works but they never left my studio, and I found that sad. I loved what I could do with a pencil, and I loved what I could achieve with oil paints. I only wished I could combine the two, but oil and graphite are incompatible

For several years, I experimented with various media and supports until I discovered a technique that would allow me to combine pencil drawing and oil painting together on stone “paper.” Stone paper is a paper-like product manufactured from calcium carbonate bonded with high-density polyethylene (HDPE). It is environmentally friendly, an extremely smooth surface perfect for my detailed drawings but also an excellent support for oil painting. I find it also appropriate that my architectural portraits are captured on a stone surface.