Where it All Began

My initial interest in art was started by a watercolour postcard-sized painting that I was given (I still have it in a small 1950’s frame in the studio) after I’d watched my primary school teacher paint it ‘Plein air’ (outside) on a school journey when I was just ten years old in the late 1960s. In a comprehensive secondary school, I continued to study art. In the mid-1970’s I took C.S.E. level art which I spectacularly failed with a mere grade two. (Three screenprints and a cat dustbin painting from that period can be seen in the studio – photos of which are on this site.) Disillusioned with it all, and especially by my lowly grade, I gave up on art; which was then further pushed out by a teacher training course, a full time teaching job, a marriage and five children. On moving to Kent in the late 1980s (which coincided with the children growing and becoming a bit more independent) I returned to watercolour painting. I joined Gail Anselmi’s art group which met in the, now defunct, Broadstairs Art Shop. When that group closed, I moved to the Wingham Art Group under the tutorage of Fred Fielder then, some years later at my wife’s suggestion, I took up a weekly individual oil painting lesson with Anthony Giles. I owe a lot to these three very patients and skilful tutors/artists.In the early days, I was purely a watercolourist. Over the passage of the years, I’ve had the time and the patience to be braver and experiment with different mediums, such as acrylic, oils and mixed-media. Recently, I have tended to paint in mainly in oils as I appreciate the depth of colour and the slow rate of drying which allows for ‘blending’ and the fact that I can’t always finish a picture in the time available! Oils stay soft, so I can return to a picture later. I still, but infrequently, paint with watercolours and acrylic, though I now tend find the rapid drying rate of acrylics somewhat aggravating unless I’m in the mood to create something ‘swift, fast and lose’.