Red Wine and Apricots: a series of three oil paintings

These three paintings were made on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday of the long weekend just gone. I had my studio open as part of Open Studios West Berkshire and North Hampshire on all three days, and it seemed like a useful sort of thing to be doing in between visitors.

I was attracted to the glassy reflections and to the subtly varying colours of the bottle and its dark contents. I also enjoyed the contrast with the duller texture of the apricots and the book, which toned so seredipitously with the fruit.

Each painting is 33 x 41 cm and is executed on clear-gessoed natural linen in oil paint with a knife (more accurately, a selection of knives). Together, they tell a sort of story - a very ordinary story, of things being consumed - but they aren't necessarily intended to be a set. Despite that, I can't help but think of them as being the beginning, middle and end...

Read Wine and Apricots 1 (Beginning), oil on linen, 33 x 41 cm, £140

Red Wine and Apricots 2 (Middle), oil on linen, 33 x 41 cm, £140

Red Wine and Apricots (End), oil on linen, 33 x 41 cm, £140

Just in case you were wondering, the wine was a smooth but unremarkable Bordeaux, the book is Leonardo by Martin Kemp, and the apricots were - well, they were apricots, and they were very nice.