The Seven Virtues I have this love hate relationship with colour. My work will either be brilliantly colourful or subtly soft. Often I’ll revel in the pure crispness of black and white where my calligraphic soul lies naked for all to see. At the moment I am going through a “seven” phase in my life’s body of work. This rendition of The Seven Virtues just cried out for colour. How can you have “Hope” without colour, I asked myself. Here I have used gouache as my medium not because I wanted the background opaque but because the pigment is more vibrant and stronger. The colours were simply laid on a water wash on 300gsm Arches hotpress paper taped to the table with 1” masking tape, brushed on with a chiselled edge and mixed where I wanted the colour to flow and meld. While the work was wet I gently tooled a calligraphic moving mark into the wetness with a metal stylus. Working steadily, still while the work was wet, I spread layers of aluminium foil across the surface. With my fingers ...