When people ask me, “When did you start painting? or, “What got you interested in art? I have to reply, that I simply don’t know! It’s something that I have always done and always felt passionate about. When I look back at my childhood, I can remember wanting to stay late at nursery and primary school to finish my painting and if I remember correctly, I took the specialised art of ‘drawing on walls’ to a new level. Nothing was safe, rugs, carpets, loo rolls and much to my parent’s dismay, a fantastic collage of fruit peels on a warm radiator. Despite this my family have always encouraged and supported me, which was possibly the most important factor in me becoming an artist.
During my years at Felsted in Essex, my main interest was always in the art room. Although I was by no means the best painter or draughtsman of the year, it was something that I felt confident with and had great enthusiasm for.
After leaving school I continued to paint and draw and developed an interest in the history of painting. This interest led me to apply to my local college to study an art course. Rembrandt, Van-Gogh and Delacroix were particular favourites of mine.
Although at college I had the opportunity to spend each day drawing and painting, I found it frustrating and felt pressured into finding the appeal in modern art. Pop art, abstract expressionism and the like were the expected food for thought and words such as ‘Neo-Classicism’ and ‘Pre-Raphaelite’ were as good as banned. This experience is something that I have shared with other artists, and perhaps it is not a bad thing as by refusal, my interest in the history of painting was spurred onwards, and I would now place Mark Rothko and other abstract expressionists high on my list of favourites!
On completion of my college course, I really wanted to find some sort of employment that would make use of my skills. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford to take my education any further, so whilst still drawing and painting at every given opportunity, I had a go at many jobs including removals, parcel delivery, waiting, gardening, office work etc. This went on until one day, whilst holding some art classes at a local primary school, I came across a small local business who specialised in Theme restaurants. My sights were set and I continually pestered the manager until he gave me the opportunity to design a mural for them. Before long I had secured a job doing what I had always wanted to do - painting. I stayed with the company for the next few years after which I found the confidence to start painting for private sales. I set up a studio and began working from home, whilst still producing commercial work, murals and large-scale commissions for many different businesses. I could happily spend every spare minute devoted to my fascination of art. When people ask me if it’s hard to make a living from a hobby? I simply reply, “Painting has never been a hobby, it’s just what I do!
Ideas & Inspirations.
Ideas and inspirations come from just about anywhere, from the ring left by the morning ‘cuppa’ to the light of an evening sunset.
With my most recent landscape paintings, the idea is a simple one. The inspiration comes from my local landscape. When I first moved to the east coast I found the landscapes frustrating. Where are the landmarks? Where are the mountains that I loved as a child in Wales? Where are the rushing streams and the wooded glens?
There are none of these where I live now. The landscape has been almost entirely claimed by agriculture and modern housing developments dot the skyline, but now I have learned to love the land that surrounds me. The changes in the colours throughout the year from partly flooded fields of flint and mud in winter to seas of billowing wheat fields in the summer. I have come to realise that it is not what you see, but how you see it. A line of trees preceded by an open field can be the most haunting of landscapes, when for just a moment, maybe from the corner of your eye the light throws deep shadows and there is possibly a small spark of something eternal and ultimately peaceful and then almost as quickly as you noticed it, the sky moved and the memory of that is all that you have.
My affinity towards the effect that sunlight can have was sparked while doing a commission for a local charity. I was sitting on the bank of a river, desperately trying to paint and draw a lock which the charity hoped to restore, (being an admirer of John Constables’ paintings I had leapt at the opportunity, as it was from this very spot that he had painted ‘the young Waltonians’) but the weather was against me, it rained, then it snowed, hailed and rained again and above all it was bitterly cold. Suddenly though, without any prior warning, the sunlight burst through the clouds and lit the landscape in a deep gold colour. Where I had previously been looking at cold greys and blues, pinks and oranges had suddenly replaced them. Greens became vivid and there seemed to be a sense behind what I couldn’t see before. Then just as I reached for a new palette, it was gone and the rain returned. I have been trying to paint that moment ever since!
From Palette to Picture.
When at work in the studio I like to keep things as simple as possible. I choose a basic palette of primary colours, burnt sienna and white, the last two I seem to use in vast quantities. I prefer to work in oil paint, not only for its well-stood tradition, but its ease of use. I rarely have patience that is required for watercolours and have developed a kind of love-hate relationship with acrylics. I greatly admire people who work with these mediums on a day-to-day basis.
I prepare the ground upon which I am to work and finish it in sienna, sanguine or an ochre shade. This serves two purposes. Firstly, I find the task of starting work much easier; there’s nothing worse than the feeling of being confronted by a large pure white surface. Secondly, I like to use these ground colours to shine through the layers I place over them. In landscape paintings I use very little red in my palette and lay thin glazes of grey and blue over a coloured ground creating the ‘purple-pink’ effect. The foreground, again has to be under painted, but I may lay a thicker ground by using a dry-brushing technique in ultramarines and sienna or simply applying the paint in thick lashes by brush. This helps to build the texture. I build the foreground to hopefully give the impression of a breeze blowing over a field or light dancing on an evening scene. I use a combination of techniques to create the moods and light in my paintings. The only problem is, I keep running out of paint!
These Ink Drawings are part of a body of work that I have been ‘playing ‘ with for many years now, It’s a technique that I started using whilst at art college, its fast and effective for making quick studies and served well at grabbing preliminary drawings during Life Courses.
Although most people know me as a landscape artist, Figurative painting and drawing have always been very important to me, As a hobby, I play guitar and like to mess around with old Jazz music and in this endeavour as I am sure most musicians do, I practise scales and I see drawing and especially life drawing as scale practise for artists, it is a fundamental building block for all of my work. But recently my Ink drawings have taken on a new life for me, becoming a project in their own right.
The technique itself is basic, I use Bamboo sticks of various thicknesses, shaped with a sharp blade into a crude dip pen and Indian ink, or homemade inks using various pigments, I have found that Different thicknesses of pen tip work in different ways with various inks and supports, many of the drawings on display here at Breeze are made with Indian Ink on fine quality cartridge papers, some I have made brief sketches with Charcoal and cloth and then laying the lines in ink over the top of this, The charcoal works as a kind of resist which adds a different dimension to the finished work, its even more messy than just ink, but part of the appeal of the technique is the ‘messiness’. Often, If I am honest the splashes and runs are intentional, but occasionally the medium lends its own’ happy accidents’ sometimes a run that is unintended can make me re-evaluate the drawing and often inspires a new approach. I work vertically to allow the ink to run.
The aim, in essence, is to create a drawing that is a convincing portrayal of a figure, be it a solitary person or group scene in as few marks as possible, Its often easy to get carried away and add more and more, but the drawings that work best are more often than not, the simpler ones, they have their own dynamic, part luck, part over confidence. I wish that I could say that I can make these line drawings in one hit, but, for many of them they start life as charcoal sketches which I will work on for several hours, once I am happy with the basic structure I will make several line drawings in pencil, to learn the shapes that I want to make with the ink, once I feel comfortable, I will make the ink drawings, the application of ink to paper is fast, it has to be. But in a strange way, an ink drawing that takes 5 minutes to make has been many hours in preparation.
Although it is not an accurate way of drawing and very unforgiving, I love the challenge of making portraits in this way, they don’t always work, but the series of musicians that Breeze are showing are amongst my favourite works that I have made in this style, the subject is precious to me and the characters within the drawings are my personal musical ‘heros’ The gypsy players in particular. These drawing are made from sketches I have made during visits to Gypsy festivals in Europe. There is a small narrative, a story of a guitar, an instrument built by a great craftsman, Killy Nonis, that was passed around Gypsy Musicians, with great reverence, I was able to follow this guitar as it passed from player to player, each in turn marvelling at its great quality and tone, This is a story that I will continue to work on, so, with a few more happy accidents I will be adding to this body of work over the next few months, years.we’ll see. Art is a journey for me and who knows where it will lead next.
I hope you enjoy looking at these drawings as much as I enjoy making them.
