I’m very happy to introduce a brand new piece of work. Welcome to ‘The Standard Shades’. Thirty two freshly painted miniatures on the paint chart for Pilchers Standard Shades of Flat Finishes.

This is the oldest paint chart I’ve ever worked on. The royal cypher of VR dates it at pre 1901. It was a real find! The colours are soft, gentle and understated, their names uncomplicated and descriptive; Sea Green, Old Gold, Dove Grey. No claims are made for their transformative powers; they are simply ‘Standard Shades’. It really is from another time.

I painted this chart incredibly slowly, over six weeks, and became completely hypnotised by it. I think this is the most unhurried piece of work I’ve ever made. I let the ideas unfurl gradually, working from one painting to the next, guided not so much by an overarching theme or idea but with the aim of gradually building up a rhythm, an atmosphere and a delicacy between the paintings and the colours and letting ideas in as they came to me.

I started at the bottom with the two very similar greens ‘Deep Permanent Green’ and ‘Light Permanent Green’. I made them into two scenes - they are the same place at different times of day. The first one is a Spring evening and the second one is the early morning and the man doesn’t seem to have moved between the two; there’s a missing night in between. Two lines up, on Naples Green, there’s a pillow that hasn’t been slept on, and when you fold the paint chart shut, the sleeping face on Dove Grey touches these two paintings of the man and forms a bridge between them.

As I painted more of the colours an overall composition began to take shape. The two greens form the base of a triangle, which stops at the tip of the boat on Sky Blue; it leads the eye right through the centre of the piece to a vanishing point in the sky above the sea. This shape is echoed elsewhere, in the tea light above the envelope on Mid Stone, and in the road above the night sky on Japanese Blue. Across the whole chart there is balance and symmetry, broken up by busy thoughts, small dramas and the unexpected.

When I’d finished this piece I stepped back and could see the play between a sense of time moving quickly, with a lot happening simultaneously and a longing for stillness, silence, rest and dreaming. Working at this tiny scale is about zooming in, seeing the world in close-up. The process of looking at something very carefully, microscopically, does seem to slow time down. I painted this whole piece at the back of my garden over the sunny months of April and May. I often asked myself whether it was ok to work so slowly, but I was hypnotised and I couldn’t stop! I do think that there’s a place, especially now, for pausing, looking very closely and seeing the delicacy in things. In a chaotic world which seems to be constantly accelerating, I’m grateful that this work carves out time for me to do that. These are The Standard Shades. They are the everyday, the spectacular unspectacular, and they are all around us.

And, of course, there are glorious prints!
The prints of this piece are exactly the same size as the original, the colours are absolutely spot on (this was a LONG process) and every tiny detail is there to see. Below you can see the print photographed next to fruit and a pencil for scale, but it’s very hard to convey how lifelike this print is. It really does look as if the original paint chart is right there in front of you, resting on a piece of paper. I’m constantly amazed by the capacity of top quality fine art printing! They’re printed onto beautiful 100% cotton 305gsm paper and each print is signed and embossed. The prints are accompanied by a signed certificate of authenticity and a text about the project. They’re wrapped with a flourish and delivered in a sturdy tube. The prints are 30cm x 40cm, a standard size so they’ll fit into a readymade frame. If you’re in the US, these prints sit very happily in a 12” x 16” frame. Any questions just drop me a line!

DELIVERY INFORMATION

Free worldwide delivery this weekend! Enter code STANDARD at checkout, valid until midnight (BST) on 13.07.25.

Otherwise:
UK delivery: £5.50 Royal Mail First Class Signed For

Rest of the world: £15 Royal Mail International Tracked.

Please note: I am based in London, UK. I regularly sell my work internationally and I take care of the export formalities, but the recipient will be responsible for paying any import duties or related fees that may be applicable in their country. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Returns: You can return your print for a full refund within 14 days of your order being placed. Please return it in perfect condition.

I process, wrap and post all orders myself from my studio in South East London so please feel free to get in touch anytime and I’ll do my best to answer any questions you might have. All parcels have a tracking number.