Visited 'Night's Move' at the Freud Museum today with the MA group. Image is a work by Oliver Clegg (ex C & G MA student). Rest of the week has been taken up with making monoprints, related to my recent large landscape painting.

This week's reading includes Gerhard Richter Landscapes and The Artist at Work (the working methods of Coldstream & Michael Andrews)

Kennington Tube by moonlight on Wednesday night.

Back from a week in Germany and now turning my attention to a new series of paintings related to the coach journey, working on both large and small format canvases. Am spending the weekend on a 2000 word essay related to my current practice.

Spent five days in Cologne with City & Guilds. Visited the Ludwig (with its massive Gerhard Richter exhibition), Wallraf-Richartz, Scnutgen & Kollwotz Museums, the glorious Dom by day & night to a Bach & Mozart concert, given by the Limburg Choir & Orchestra. Ventured further a field to Duisburg, Dusseldorf & Bonn to see more museums.

To balance the work ethic, time out meant some serious entertainment in numerous Brauhauser for Kolsch beers, German sausage & sauerkraut, washed down with another beer, followed by a schnapps or zwei, drei vier or even funf in some cases - sorry about the lack of umlauts.

Made series of paintings about objects around me. Have been looking at works by Sickert and Bernard Dunstan. Am fascinated by the way both apply colour to the canvas and force a breaking up of the surface, with subtle tones. So I have made tonal charts. In our group seminar on Tuesday I talked about two works: painting of Santa Marie della Salute by Sickert and Poppies and Marigolds by Ivon Hitchens.

Looking into renting a studio in London after September next year with Acava and Acme.

Had a really dynamic tutorial with Reece Jones on Friday. Talked about Theory, Context and Making, then went to Rokeby in Store St to see paintings by Sam Dargan. All the works were painted on board, small, political with a hint of humour.

We are all off to Cologne on the 3rd November for the week.

Visited Stephen Williams at his ACAVA studio in NW10. I found Stephen surrounded by his latest and ongoing project: working on the square format, building collages from card, delicately put together and painted with subtle almost subliminal colours.

This week I have been making studies of London Fields, which produced one reasonable work, but after a tutorial with Jane Langley I have decided to return to the individual and more personal objects, to focus on layering of colour and tone to create form. Revisiting the National Gallery & National Portrait Gallery after that was also very helpful.

A Jenny Saville painting at Frieze this Thursday and Friday I also went to Zoo at the back of the RA. The other great treat was bumping into Tom Phillips in the Burlington Arcade. In the Tuesday seminar we discussed a painting from the last 10 and 100yrs that were important to us. I chose AB.L by Gerhard Richter and Kingfisher by Van Gogh. There was also a tutorial to support the 2,000 word essay: introducing ourselves as artists to date. Also stretched more canvases this week.

Very busy week and plenty of opportunity to paint. Had introductory tutorials with Kate Palmer and Reece Jones. Talked about colour, relationship with contemporary and historical painters and my own work. Looking at Camera Lucida by Barthes for further discussions about the relevance and use of photography in my work.

What have Irving and Hogarth got in common? They were on my route to the National Gallery last Tuesday. We each chose a painting and discussed it in situ with the rest of the MA group. Mine was a work by Goya 'The Forcibly Bewitched".
The rest of the week has been spent stretching canvases and priming, ready for painting on Monday.

I have just completed my first week at City & Guilds School of Art London, in Kennington. Monday began with admin, followed by a walk to Tate Britain as a group to see the Francis Bacon show. Tuesday The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons, followed by the Sir John Soane Museum and after lunch a visit to Tate Modern. The rest of the week has been used for sorting out studio spaces, getting to know each other and ordering materials. I share my space with Catherine Cleary who also commutes in every day. Our studio looks over Clever Square, which will initially become the subject of my paintings this term.

Spent two weeks in Umbria. Revisited The Legend of the True Cross in Arezzo and made my first visit to Assisi, spending most of the time in the Lower and Upper churches. Had to go back for a second visit as there was so much to see. The frescoes depicting the Legend of St Francis are stunning and so inventive in the way they resolve complex subjects in their compositions.