One of my first memories is holding a pencil or paintbrush. Enthusiastically copying TV characters, or real artists’ work from comics and magazines, was my introduction to figure painting before I eventually learned how to do it properly at life drawing classes. My small boy’s interest in Westerns later turned into a deep interest in military history which then found further expression in rendering the colourful uniforms and events of the past as paintings.
Since those very early days I’ve also developed a real love for landscape, trees and water which I can exercise in great variety by painting scenes in The Cotswolds, Forest of Dean and the Severn and Wye Valleys. My work covers the spectrum of landscape and figures, especially those of a military or historical nature, and on occasion also includes birds and animals, since the natural world is another source of inspiration.
The richness and permanence of oil colours gives great satisfaction but I occasionally turn my hand to using ink or water colour pencils for military figures. I find that similar effects to oil can be obtained in acrylics with only hours spent as drying time instead of the days or even weeks for a highly developed oil work. It’s a matter of personal taste for the buyer, of course, which looks best.
I have lived most of my life in Cheltenham and have been a successful exhibitor, with a few gap years, at the Open Air Art Exhibition, since 1976, when selling all the dozen pictures I had painted meant I never looked back. I was fortunate to be a committee member for 12 years. I have been a member of the Cotswold Art Club since the early 1990s.
