I believe that inspiration somehow comes from within. This always 'kicks in', so to speak, as I see ideas for paintings which are almost everywhere I look - from the sky to buildings, at dawn or at sunset, even at night under a bright moon. Add to these the weather and the pictorial list becomes endless.

Nostalgia also spurs me to paint by looking back to childhood memories with adult eyes; this allows me to be quite free artistically. In my neck of the woods, with the subjects I paint, most people see soot blackened stone and polluted skies. I see colour. Like wet Sienna cobbles and Prussian blue shadows with burnt umber and cadmium skies. I view the world, along with my memories, in the subtle blended hues of my paint box.

Bob Barker