There's a moment, somewhere between the second and third layer of paint, when a canvas stops being a surface and starts being a place. That's the moment I chase every time I step into the studio — and it's the part of the process our customers never quite see once a piece is framed and hanging on their wall.
This week, we're pulling back the curtain a little.
It always starts with a feeling, not a plan
Neither Lost Vanity nor Whitstable & Seasalter Golf began life as a sketch with a fixed outcome. Lost Vanity started as a study in beauty, glamour and transformation — the kind of painting that changes its mind halfway through and drags you along with it. The Whitstable & Seasalter Golf piece came from something much closer to home: rolling greens, coastal light, and the very particular energy of watching the women's game played with total conviction on our doorstep. Both paintings went through versions that never made it to the final canvas. That's normal. If a painting arrives too easily, I don't trust it yet.
Whitstable is always in the room
Even when a piece isn't literally of Whitstable, the town shapes the palette — the chalky light off the sea, the weathered wood on the harbour, the slightly salt-worn colours you only notice if you've lived with them a while. It's the same instinct that runs through the Whitstable Memories print collection, just translated into a single, one-off original rather than a repeatable edition.
From canvas to your wall
Original paintings leave the studio only once — there's no edition, no reprint, no second chance to own that exact combination of decisions. That's what makes them different from our fine art prints, which let more people bring a piece of the same world home at a different scale and price point. Both routes start in the same place: hours of layering, stepping back, scraping off what isn't working, and starting again until the canvas feels less like something I made and more like something I found.
A peek at what's currently on the easel
Right now the studio is moving into early-autumn light, which always nudges the work slightly warmer and moodier than the summer pieces. If you've been following along, you'll know that's usually when some of our favourite originals take shape.
If you'd like to see where Lost Vanity and Whitstable & Seasalter Golf ended up, both original paintings are available now — each a one-of-a-kind piece, ready to become the start of someone else's story.
Explore the current collection of original paintings and fine art prints at LRM Studio →
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