With Christmas well and truly over now its time to look forward to the new year of business and all the exciting challenges it offers.

The miniature oil on canvas project involving miniature aviation subjects is coming along nicely. At present I have six skies ready to put something in. Yes, this is indeed how I work a lot of the time. I absolutely adore skies, and painting them. So much so in fact that I often feel like just leaving a sky just as it is without adding aircraft! As sort of living abstract if you like. It is one reason I enjoy my work so much, I don't just enjoy painting aeroplanes.

The painting below is a tiny little canvas in progress, suffering a little from light reflections in the photograph and incomplete tail markings and control surfaces but I think you get the idea here. The canvases are 8"x6" but are real fun and only cost £150 framed.

As you can see, the Typhoon painting is complete now. I have added the mechanic walking towards the aircraft having left his bike on the ground. Little additions like this all help to enhance the narrative and I would like to thank James Farrington for his very kind help by travelling a long way to pose for me. He posed in several positions for me with a view to including more than one figure in the composition but in the end I decided to have just one figure as seen.

The B17 painting is also now complete. this represents a pair of B17s that are returning after a successful mission. Unfortunately they collided just before they got to the airfield and is commissioned and titled by Geoff Burke, a friend of one of the survivors. The painting and print are to be titled "The Successful Mission".

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I will be starting my Sydney Camm Still Life soon and will be going down to Brooklands to check out the original blue print/drawing of the Hurricane. This will form the foundation of the piece as it will no doubt be stretched over a desk or something and all the other bits and pieces will be laid in a very artistic way over it! Lets just see how the initial image in my mind varies, if at all, from the finished item...

I imagine items such as a model of a prototype Hurricane taking priority, disrespectfully used as a paperweight to hold down the edge of the drawing; An upturned Merlin piston, also used as a paperweight at the other end, maybe used as an ashtray with a smouldering cigarette in it; A slide rule, compass and dividers; There will almost certainly be a crumpled up sheet of paper with writing on thrown down (a tempting suggestion that Camm wrote it) or even a scribbled sketch crossed out. There will be a significant shadow cast across the drawing hopefully complementing angles and shapes already there; Pencil/rubber/glasses etc.

Research has uncovered little material, information or help from external sources but I am looking forward greatly to meeting Mr Chris Farara at Brooklands who will be showing me around and I am sure I will be having a long chat with him. To this end, please, if anyone has any information no matter how insignificant, please contact me.

I have to admit that for me this is the most exciting stage of any project. I think it has something to do with the fact that it is always easy to imagine, or at least hope, this will be the best painting I have ever done.

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I just thought I would mention something I have been doing for a while now that is a little different. As seen below, I think it a rather nice idea to do pencil sketches in client's books on the introductory page. The sketch of course representing a subject that is relevant to the book. It adds a little something to the book and makes it a unique item, unlike any others. I am charging £80 for this service. I will look at doing any book but please, if you send one to me, take the dust jacket off and send it by signed delivery for security.

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In the pipeline I have a very interesting Sterling to do, low level at night. And an underwater scene depicting a wrecked colonised airframe. I don't know yet what the aircraft subject will be on that one. Also an ME 109 and a shed load of others... but I will keep you posted, as and when.

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That's it for this time, so unless anyone wants to visit the gallery or give me a ring, I'll speak to you in a couple of months.

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If you require more information about ordering prints please telephone 01507 327681 or email robin@robin-smith-art.co.uk

We are just finalising this year's list of shows we will be at - look out for further postings!