Art. Tim Turton

 I've always drawn, for me it's the bedrock for creativity whether its a painting or a sculpture. When you draw or sketch, you think about the subject in a subconscious way, making alterations to the drawing without thinking - responding automatically to what you see.   I use drawings as the starting point for many paintings, often combining more than one into a finished artwork.  For me, there's 'observational drawing' which is sketching from life and drawing what's around you, and there's 'drawing for a purpose' which is when you have a painting or artwork in mind.  The discipline for each is slightly different. With 'observational drawing' you respond directly to what you see, soaking up the feeling as you go along, storing some of it in your head for later. These drawings on many occasions can become finished artworks in themselves, as it's sometimes impossible to improve on them. With 'drawing for a purpose' you combine eleme

 A painting doesn't just happen - the finished painting may look simple as if its just come together.  That's the feeling I want my work to have when it's complete.  However it's a process.  A process that involves, observational sketching, laying out, blocking in, amending and finally completing. A question I've often been asked is;  'How long did it take you to paint it?'.  My answer invariably is 'A few hours sketching and observing, time thinking about it, a number of hours to do the actual painting and forty years of experience'.  The experience is the bit you can't quantify, but its the bit I can't do without - its experience that enables me to take things out in order to simplify and to create marks that are beautiful in themselves. For me a painting needs to work on a number of levels - subject matter, size, mark making, colour and design.  I need to like the subject first and I get real joy from creating a work that reflects how I fe