One Engine, Two Toucans and Three Days Left to Order

I don’t know about you but I’ve been flying with one engine since the start of December. As the finishing line for 2025 loomed into view from my cockpit its been desperate struggle to maintain a controlled a descent and avoid a crash landing before the Christmas break is reached.

But here I am, just about still airborne with the MAYDAY lights flashing, to remind you that you only have a couple of days left to buy anything from my online shop to guarantee delivery before Christmas. You can get free delivery on anything with the code VALHALLA until then. Your deadline day for orders is this Thursday the 18th

SHOP

I delivered my last major piece of work for the year on the 2nd. That was the point where one of my engines failed. The big job was done, It felt like it was time to rest. But sadly you can’t just down tools that early in December. I had to keep turning up because all the other threads that bind me to different businesses and individuals through commissions are themselves trying to tie up their own loose ends before everyone actually stops for a couple of weeks.

And it was maybe the most major piece of major work that I’ve done in 2025: a huge 3.6m long bar mirror for the new Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Covent Garden. This was a great commission, one of those rare moments when you get to use the opportunity that a big brand can provide to really expand on an area in my work and take it to a whole new level.

I managed to convince the agency that hired me and the client (Guinness) that the way to update the classic pub mirror would be to let me turn one into a giant gold tree of life. I did a whole series of gold Tree of Life paintings last year, each on a manageable 90cm x 90cm wooden panel. But this gave me a chance to supersize those paintings and make something that feels like an actual scale size tree.

Of course I could have just done that on my own steam if I wanted, but where would I put something that big? I had to rearrange my studio furniture and build a temporary custom easel to house the three sections of mirror in a continuous line for this piece. Being ambitious with the scale of your artwork is double edged sword: get it right and you’re into the big leagues, but get it wrong and you’re left with a mill stone that takes over your expensive studio space.

It’s much better to try and do this kind of thing with a destination already decided and a tight deadline to get it done and delivered.

And the fact that these Tree of Life paintings are fantastical rather than representative of actual trees gave me a solid license to integrate all of the key pieces of Guinness imagery without it feeling like I’d just slapped a brand logo over my style. It meant I could have fun with the various pieces of Guinness iconography. A tree with pints for fruit? Why not.

They wanted the mirror to celebrate the craft of coopering and the importance of the oak barrel in the story of Guinness becoming the worldwide phenomenon it is today. But I argued that without the oak tree there would be no barrel, so the story really begins with a tree, hence The Guinness Tree of Life.

Based off of my watercolour sketch they liked it but were still worried it would feel too traditional. I think that had more to do with the medium of my sketch than my design. Because although I use traditional techniques and take a lot of my references from artists who died hundreds of years ago I don’t think anything I produce ends up feeling ‘vintage’. It’s always cut through with my contemporary sensibility and 21st century understanding.

To assuage their anxieties I gave them two contemporary references that underpin my style. One was Matisse and his wonderful cut outs of leaves in those perfect colour combinations. The other was Michael Craig Martin, with his beautifully observed line paintings of everyday objects. That seemed to calm them down. And in the end my initial idea survived mostly unscathed. Which is something worth celebrating when this many people at different levels of seniority get to take a look and have their say about what madness the artist has come up with to them look interesting.

I was pleased with it in the studio, but the real test came with how it would look in situ. When I turned up for the opening party last weekend and saw it settled in its space above the bar it looked like it had always been there, a bright, fresh and imposing spread of organic matter amongst the centuries old bricks that enclosed it.

It’s a piece of work I’m immensely proud of and the perfect final note on a year that has felt really strong artistically as well as professionally for me.

But if there’s been an area of underdevelopment this year its probably been my writing and this Substack as my outlet for it. Maybe I could have been less precious about ideas for pieces. Maybe I could have made more time for it. But mostly I think I just had less juice this year to give to it compared to 2024.

In my search for an alternative space to explore my voice away from the ever disintegrating world of Instagram Substack has proved an interesting but imperfect option. So I’m not sure exactly how I want to make it work better for me in 2026 just yet, but that’s what breaks are for: time to reassess, time to think about what’s working and what’s not and how to change it.

It’s always tempting to claim revolutionary change is on its way when the new year arrives. But its better, I think, to remember that its just another step on the road. Same goes for big moments of success like delivering an artwork for a major international brand. Just another step on the road, not some indicator that you’re about to reach the land of milk and honey. Do that and you’ll just end up disappointed.

Acknowledge the transitions, but don’t attach too much to them about your own self worth. They’re just moments to reflect on the current direction and where you might want to turn on the road next or if you want to just allow the road to unfurl itself ever onwards.

For now I just want to say thank you to anyone who’s bought something from me or just enjoyed these Substacks or other areas out my output in 2025. See you next year for more of the same but also more surprises as yet unknown.

I’ll leave you with a YouTube classic The Crawl, which best represents my current physical level as I creep towards “that damn line”.