Preface by Doug Blanks

In 2012, I'd not yet been put out to pasture but had reached an age where I could have been.

And, not having done anything creative in over half a century (since school days), I bought some oil paints whilst on holiday in France and discovered something that had lain dormant inside of me for all my working life.

Overnight, I found I could paint to a standard that surprised me.

Where had it come from? I'd painted at school with horrible tempera blocks but there I was in 2012 suddenly painting in a way I never thought possible – and this newfound ability had shown up literally overnight. I couldn't have been more shocked if I'd woke up speaking Japanese! So how was this possible?

Over the following years I thought constantly about art. And in so doing my dedicated efforts led me to uncover fundamental insights, and facts that, I think, remain unnoticed by the majority; facts never even sought or considered. And what fuelled the urgency to write a book was the realisation that, to my knowledge, none of these discoveries had previously been put into book form. Had someone else done so, I wouldn't have felt the need to put pen to paper!