Looking for ideas in style and design John loved the Glasgow Boys work, then he developed a love of colour influenced by Robert Hagen in Australia, Ted Goerschner in USA and Mike Svob from Canada, all modern contemporary artists. The English colourist Ken Howard has a masterly way with light as well as colour, and he introduced the artist model into the figurative paintings. At this time John had been going to evening classes for figure painting in Edinburgh College of Art and he was beginning to produce reasonable figurative images. Inspiration then flowed from the art of Jack Vettriano and the late Robert Lenkiewicz, both masters of figurative painting.