Armfield recalled that 'Apart from invaluable benefit from guidance and advice from such masters as Henry Payne, Arthur Gaskin and Joseph Southall, I really taught myself, as must any one who hopes to do individual work... I detested the Life Class, and rarely attended it: I refused to learn perspective or anatomy as they bored me, and generally, I could not have been a worse student.'

His paintings, not least his still-lives, are always resonant with symbolism.

Arfield was at the forefront of the Tempera revival in Britain and In 1946 published  'Tempera Painting Today', (Pentagon Press LTD).