OK, so that was a very short end...

A lot has happened over the last 12 months - to me, to my practice and in the wider world - so I think it is time I took to the keyboard again. Anybody who has taken the trouble to have even a glance will have realised I did not get on with Twitter at all (I'm not sure if it's the brevity, the immediacy or the constant avalanche of people shouting for attention) so I think bringing the blog back is the way to go.

I'll write a post soon giving an overview of what I've been up to and another teasing the high profile exhibition which is rapidly approaching but for now I just want to mention some of the things which have been and are pre-occupying me, things which will feature here in the coming weeks.

• Following my adventures with Pip Seymour's paints, I have a whole new attitude to colour
• I've been digging deeper and deeper into historic techniques and materials
• Craftsmanship
• Paint-making
• The 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is just months away so I have been steeped in the history of Runnymede - where it was signed and I am based
• The relationship between spirituality and the land
• Residencies
• Japan
• The depiction of time
• whether (and how) to let events in the wider world impact on my work
• Value for money & exploitation within the art world

...and of course, as spring approaches, my fascination with seasonality will doubtless emerge alongside it.

Superficially, the blog will be more or less what it was before - the adventures, crises and choices facing a painter today - but I'm a little more grown up, a lot more forthright, I have more confidence in my own abilities and above all my eyes and ears are open and I'm no longer just paying attention to Alanland.

I don't know about you, but I'm curious to see how it turns out.