Back to the Easel
My television series Rolf on Art, which was filmed between 2001 and 2007, was what led me back to my first love – painting. The second show was on Degas and we went to Windsor racecourse where I did a Degas-style painting of a groom leading a horse and jockey. While I was working on it, the producer came up and said to me, ‘You’ve blown it – it doesn’t look like anything.’ I said, ‘Go ten yards back and look again.’ She did and she then understood what I was doing – impressionism. I explained how close-up an impressionist painting can look like a bit of a blur. You need some distance. I just loved working on that painting and when I got home I thought to myself: why am I not doing more of this? Next morning I was up at seven, painting a portrait from a photograph I had of an aboriginal girl. I worked like a demon and by nine I’d finished ‘Arnhemland Girl’. Everything went like a dream. I couldn’t believe I’d steered away from painting all this time, and since that moment I’ve never looked back. We built a studio onto our house and I’m up there every spare minute. It’s my life.
Arnhemland Girl