A year ago I started drawing with the ambition of eventually being able to draw something so that other people would be able to tell what it was. I found that wasn't as hard as I expected, so I upgraded my ambition to being able to draw a person so that other people would be able to tell who it was. Turns out I can do that too. So now I need a new ambition.

I'm not interested in photo realism. When I look at other people's art, I can admire that style of painting, after all it is very technically accomplished. But I don't much enjoy looking at it. I enjoy more expressive, impressionistic art (to use those terms very loosely).

So I want to loosen up. I now want to be able to paint and draw people and things so that other people can tell something about how I feel about the subject. I want to communicate something other than a likeness. I'm deliberately painting looser and looser. How loose can you get before the work starts looking like it was done by a chimp?

When I asked Tom what he thought of this painting he said "I dunno, what is it? Pineapples? Roses? Badly deformed onions?" Perhaps that tells me what I need to know.