This week I tried something new — painting directly over a photograph. The image I chose was taken inside Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban home, Finca Vigía, which I had the chance to visit back in 2013. It was a worthwhile exercise for two reasons:

1. Colour Mixing Practice
   Painting over a printed photo gave me the chance to test and adjust shades against what was already there. I didn’t need to match the colours exactly, just shift them slightly lighter or darker so I could see where I’d been. It became a subtle, almost meditative exercise in perception.

2. Brush Control
   I usually paint on large canvases, using big brushes and even rollers. Switching to a 000 brush meant slowing right down, steadying my hand, and paying attention to detail. It was a complete change of pace, one that sharpened my control in ways I hadn’t expected.

The result may not be something I’d ever sell, but that wasn’t the point. It was about patience, discipline, and seeing differently.

Stepping Back into Hemingway’s Cuba

What made this experiment especially meaningful was that the photograph I chose came from a place I visited in 2013 — Ernest Hemingway’s private residence, Finca Vigía (Lookout Farm), just outside Havana. It remains one of the highlights of my trip to Cuba, an experience that has stayed with me ever since.

Visiting the villa felt like stepping into a time capsule, a deeply intimate tribute to one of America’s most influential writers. The 1890s Spanish-style home offered a fascinating glimpse into a different era of Cuban life — layered with echoes of American influence, revolutionary history, and even traces of Soviet presence.

I wandered through Hemingway’s living and dining rooms, imagining the conversations and toasts once shared there. His office, with its cluttered charm, revealed where much of his writing had taken shape. Most surprising of all was the typewriter perched on top of a bookcase in his bedroom. Hemingway, it turns out, preferred to write while standing.

Everywhere I looked, his presence lingered. Posters of bullfighters hung on the walls, armchairs sat ready for reading, books filled the shelves. Visitors weren’t allowed inside, but with the wide-open windows it almost didn’t matter — I could see everything: his books, his furniture, even that typewriter, perched in place as though he’d just stepped away.

The house was airy and inviting, a writer’s paradise frozen in time. Clothes still hung in the wardrobe, magazines were stacked on tables, and it all felt as though Hemingway might return at any moment to demand who had moved his fishing hat. The estate radiated a glamorous kind of decay, touched with the ghost of a wilder Havana when movie stars and mobsters filled the nightclubs, and no one questioned why your house needed a bar the size of a hotel lobby.

Out on the grounds, I stood before Pilar, his beloved fishing boat — now a national treasure, famous for inspiring The Old Man and the Sea. The gardens were lush, full of tropical plants, a tennis court, and even a pet cemetery. The Havana skyline stretched in the distance, the light and air cinematic, a reminder of why Hemingway never wanted to leave.

And then there was the tower. The three-storey lookout housed a writing studio perched high above the grounds. The staircase was narrow and rickety, the handrail unreliable, but I climbed carefully to the top. The view was worth every precarious step. Hemingway had completed seven books while living in Havana, and here in this simple studio — a desk, a chair, a bookcase overflowing with worn volumes, a telescope pointing toward the city — I felt the ghost of his presence. It wasn’t luxurious, but it didn’t need to be.

Standing in that room, sunlight pouring through the shutters, I imagined Hemingway himself at the desk: shirt rumpled, drink nearby, plot unfolding with every keystroke. It struck me as one of the most blissful places in the world to write.

What moved me most was the feeling that it wasn’t only about Hemingway’s legacy. It was about the reminder that with the right space, a little solitude, and a view to stir the imagination, anyone might find their story.

Closing Reflections

So while this paint-over experiment may not be a piece I’ll ever put up for sale, it holds meaning for me — a small practice in patience, and a reminder of the sacred creative spaces that artists before us have inhabited. Hemingway had his tower; I had this photograph and a 000 brush.

Sometimes, experiments like these aren’t about the finished result at all. They’re about staying open to practice, inspiration, and the possibility of finding new ways to see.

Have you ever visited a place that changed the way you thought about creativity?

When I began this piece, I wasn’t trying to compete with Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus — how could anyone? Instead, I wanted to explore what happens when a familiar image is seen through a different lens, one shaped not by mythology, but by faith.

In Botticelli’s original, Venus rises from the seafoam, a goddess of beauty and desire, greeted by the winds and attended by figures from classical myth. Her arrival is sensual, ethereal, and full of movement. I kept the shell, the stance, and the sense of arrival — but I shifted the meaning.

In my version, the woman is not a goddess, but a modern figure born of Spirit. She stands poised, her stillness a quiet strength, her gaze holding something more inward — the beginning of an awakening.

The inspiration came from John 3:3:

“Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

I wanted the work to speak to transformation, identity, and grace — themes that run deep in my faith and in my art. Where Botticelli’s Venus is born of seafoam, this figure is born of Spirit. She is not celebrated for her divine sensuality, but for her renewal.

There’s also an echo of 2 Corinthians 5:17:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

This painting isn’t a rejection of the original — in fact, it’s a tribute to Botticelli’s enduring vision. But by reframing it through a biblical perspective, the scene transforms from a mythological birth to a portrait of redemption. It becomes a space for contemplation — about what it means to be made new, and how art can bridge centuries, cultures, and beliefs.

I’d love to hear your thoughts: If you could reimagine any work from art history through your own lens — whether cultural, personal, or spiritual — which would you choose, and how might you transform its meaning?

In contemporary art — especially in modern office spaces and gallery settings — it’s often the quiet, enigmatic figures that linger in the mind. These are not merely decorative images; they are invitations. Invitations to pause, reflect, and connect.

Smiling faces can sometimes feel too explicit, too final. They tell us exactly how to feel. But a figure with downcast eyes or a contemplative posture — like the one in this piece — leaves room for the viewer. It opens a door to introspection.

This figure’s elongated features and soft, inward gaze create a sense of emotional depth. Paired with a swirling, celestial background (a subtle homage to Van Gogh), the overall mood is more reflective than sad — like stillness before revelation. She seems to be listening inwardly, perhaps holding a sacred thought just beneath the surface.

That ambiguity is powerful. In a world that often demands instant interpretation, this piece invites slow looking. It rewards return visits. And in workspaces or meditative environments, that kind of visual presence becomes not just art — but atmosphere.

There’s a reason this kind of work resonates. It doesn’t shout. It speaks in a whisper.

Recently, while working on a new abstract painting, I had one of those unsettling moments artists sometimes talk about—but rarely expect to experience themselves.

As I built up the layers—scraping back, adding washes, letting colours mingle—shapes began to emerge. At first it was just a suggestion: a shadow here, a curve there. Then I realised I was staring at what looked uncannily like faces. Not painted deliberately, not even consciously formed, but appearing as if they had always been hiding in the paint, waiting for me to notice.

The next morning, I came back to the studio curious to study them again… and they were gone. Not even a ghost of a jawline. Perhaps it was the light the day before. Perhaps my mind had been in that half-dream state that invites imagination to take over. Whatever the cause, the change was so complete it left me a little unnerved.

Later, I learned this is a recognised phenomenon—much like seeing shapes in clouds, tree bark, or even rock formations. Psychologists call it pareidolia: the brain’s natural tendency to seek familiar patterns, especially faces, in random arrangements. In art, it can feel almost magical—like the painting has its own secret life, revealing and concealing as it pleases.

Whether the faces were ever truly there or not, the experience reminded me that painting is as much about perception as creation. Sometimes what we “see” is a collaboration between brush, surface, and mind. And sometimes, that collaboration is fleeting.