My oil painting journey
As a child, I was often drawing and making things. I recall a teacher at school showing my parents a big picture on the classroom wall that I had painted of Mickey Mouse when I was about 9 years of age.
A photo of me as a child taken from the family album.
That was when they fully realised that I was good at art. It was a subject that I excelled in at school and it helped me get through life, with my severe deafness. I also liked making models and building things and I used to help my dad out with woodwork items. I recall being given a Powermite mini workbench for Christmas, with small battery operated power tools, which I used a lot to make things out of balsa wood that I had designed. It would be deemed too dangerous for children nowadays!
My dad played a key role in encouraging me with my art and making things. He was an all rounder too and was also very good at making things, as a very good tradesman. At around the age of 14, he introduced me to an elderly amateur painter (Pat O’Hay) and she taught me to paint in oils in his old workshop on Saturday mornings: mostly painting still life. She loved the impressionists. I fondly remember my first plein air painting experience with her, on a farm, with a charming old farmhouse and cows. When they came in for milking, I had to get out of the way very promptly! There were a lot of flies hovering around us too, which was challenging. I had cycled about 4 miles up and down hills to her house, with my royal blue wooden paint box that I had made, on the rack. I nearly lost it a few times cycling downhill on the winding bends on the country lane!
When I was 16, I did my first commissioned oil painting of a Great Dane and subsequently did 3 more of coats of arms for Pat’s family.
Pat was very supportive and patient. She also took me to my first exhibition, which was the RA Summer Show, when I was 17, just before I went to Maidstone Art College for my life changing foundation course, which was the happiest of times for me. A world that I felt at home in.
The tutors on my foundation course wanted me to go on to study fine art at the college but my dad said that I needed a trade or a profession, to earn a living from and advised keeping the art as a side line. He was the one who suggested that I do interior design (now interior architecture) because he felt that with my skills and background that it would suit me. My uncle (whom I looked up to) was an architect, so it was kind of in the family. It was hard having to give up the aim of studying fine art (as I had always dreamed of being an artist) but I did excel in the design world. His view was that one had to be practical, to have a roof over one’s head and to put food on the table. I went onto study interior design for 3 years at Croydon School of Art & Design before embarking on a long career in that field.
After the art commission that I did at 16 came back to me in 2003, my female colleagues in my office and building all wanted to see it. They could not believe that I was not painting anymore and said that I was wasted where I was. A close friend in the office suggested that I try The CityLit for evening classes, so I enrolled in an advanced painting course, run by Chris Hough, who was to be a key part of my art journey. I was hooked and did lots of life painting courses with various excellent tutors before studying the 2 year contemporary fine art course there, whilst being lead consultant on a big design project. I had found my true self and was really buzzing. I learned a lot from Chris about oil painting and he encouraged me on my drawing path, with Brian Hodgson becoming a huge influence too. During this period, I attended an oil landscape workshop at the Tunbridge Wells Art Society and the professional artist doing the demonstration was very good. He thought that I would become a professional artist and had been on a similar journey to me, so was happy to give me advice. I still use a lot of what I learned from him with the knowledge gained at CityLit. It is interesting regarding the saying about a teacher showing up when you need them was true for me. I have been lucky that way.
With regards to my new painting direction, I largely owe this to Lesley Samms, after I had really enjoyed painting again in oils, when undertaking the “Making Art” module in the Pure programme during the Covid lockdowns period. I had really missed it and during this phase more colour was creeping into my ink drawings and sketches. Lesley suggested, with my background that I try a painting from my imagination. The first one was the “House In The Woods”, using a mixture of memory and a very old sketch inspiration for the bracken. I loved it and found it so freeing. I was encouraged to do 3 more, which I did and I am now starting on paintings 12 and 13 of the series, to be used in a proposed solo exhibition next year. It brought me back to my teenage years, when I was often left to my own devices in art at school and would draw buildings and people from imagination. It was like finding oneself again.
I have often been curious about imaginative story telling paintings, including the Pre-Raphaelites, Surrealists and some of the old masters. It goes beyond depicting just what is in front of me. Working this way brings my architectural and furniture design background together with my love of drawing and painting. Most importantly, it has given me confidence to paint what is in my head! The dadaist principle of beauty in everyday objects, with Salvador Dali’s lobster telephone, Magritte’s apple on face or steam train coming out of a fireplace paintings, Giorgio De Chirico’s use of architecture and shadows in his surreal paintings all inspire me. Other influences are artists such as Edward Hopper, Millias, Hogarth and more recently Carlo Crivelli’s work that I saw at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. I really like Graham Clarke’s work too and I am a fan of Ravilious’s art. I love the whole creative process combined with the figurative and narrative.
Although my work is not inspired or influenced by them , I do respect my contemporaries who use their imagination and story telling in their art work, such as Katherine Reekie, Barry Harrison SGFA, Maz Jackson SGFA, Dani Humberstone, Daniel Merriam, Ed Boxall, Ceridwen Jane Gray, and Marie Prett, to name a few. Their work has curiosity, humour and a dreamlike quality about it.
More recently, a close friend has introduced me to the American Gothic artist Grant Wood and I can definitely see certain similarities with my work there.
At the latest RA Summer Show, I loved Grayson Perry’s bell, with all of the elements from imagination that he used on it. I enjoyed his use of creativity and that shone through. The “Surrealism Beyond Borders” exhibition at the Tate Modern can be recommended and it showed all of the variations and movements within this genre globally. Their statement of “Surrealism is not a style - but a state of mind. It aims to subvert reality” was an accurate description. Another very good exhibition that I enjoyed was the Japanese artist Minoru Nomata’s artwork at the De La Warr recently, painting buildings and scenes from imagination. His quote “Painting is an escapist world, but I would like it to be a place to become energised and return to the world rather than a place to stay” is interesting. I try not to be too influenced by particular artists; to have my own style or angle on the subjects that I paint. After all, one should try to be true to oneself. However, quite often one will inevitably see unconscious influences and it can be reassuring when on a path to discover other artists in the same genre.
My Process:
“How do you come up with the ideas, develop them and how does each painting evolve?”
This can be quite random. Often a visual idea can occur when walking my dog in the morning. Sometimes seeing something that inspires an idea, such as a quirky building or object a little out of context and other times it can be from waking up from a dream. Even memories of old films can act as a prompt.
I will usually start with some sketches and push the composition and subject around, adding things in during the process. The finished preparatory sketch will form the basis of the painting, quite often adapting, changing and adding in more random things in at the painting stage, including on finalising colours. As if living in the scene or communicating with the picture. Drawing still features heavily in my work. Although I may have an idea of how it will look, it does evolve stage by stage. So in a way, the painting starts to dictate what is needed. It can get more surreal and bizarre as the process develops, such as adding in the pink bath in my Tree House painting. I felt that it needed a cast iron bath and by pure chance, when walking my dog in the village one morning, I spotted a 1960s pink bath in a garden, with plants in. Nothing more surreal than the “real” world!
I do not generally copy from photos, so I design the buildings, furniture and things like gates, using my vast design experience. I get inspiration for the trucks and cars from what I see but will sketch out something in the style of them generally, rather than depict real life actual models. I want them to be part of the pictures rather than for car geeks to see them as the sole part of the painting. As I did 110 lockdown sketches of objects, I sometimes refer to these, along with some other plien air sketch material. Other times, I will paint certain items directly from observation onto the canvas.
“What tricky aspects (if any) have you had to negotiate with this work?”
I really have to think and feel my way around the work. Often one has to be patient to allow the paint to dry before applying the next layer and this actually can help by stepping back to re-evaluate the picture, when my instincts tell me that I need to add something more obscure or different to it, to help create the atmosphere, humour and scale. Working on a bigger canvas from a small sketch can often show that something else is required. I just love the creative process and it evolving.
“How do you feel when painting?”
When I am painting I get lost in it and I am very much in my own world. It is a happy place, a calm place but I could easily become a hermit, in my own world just working from imagination. It is a safe place to be! I have to watch out for that but, thankfully, with having to let the painting develop stage by stage and the dog needing his walks, that gets me out of the house and studio for a change of scenery and socialising. With my life time of deafness. I am often in my own head, so the painting process helps me to externalise it.
“Can you see historical references in your paintings?”
There are historical references in my paintings. My pictures are often set in the past, with old buildings, vehicles of the 1950s, 60s and even 70s. There tends to be much more character in these eras, in my opinion, rather than the harsh, hard edged and homogenous tendencies in todays super-fast times, with everything expected at a push of a button from a machine. There is a little bit of nostalgia in my work, of a calmer era, and things not always being what they seem. However I do mingle some contemporary objects in my pictures as well.
“What is your ambition for this work?”
Currently, I am still in the early stages of this new journey and my ambition is to have this series in a solo exhibition at an appropriate venue. After that, I will keep going and to see where it takes me. It will be great to be able to show them in the appropriate galleries and events, where my work would suit. I plan to keep going.
“How has creating this artwork changed you and your art practice?”
I feel like the real me is emerging and I am feeling much freer. Unlike design or commissioned work, where one is constantly compromising to please other peoples whims and opinions, I am largely painting them to suit me. I love the fact that I can just paint what I want to and the buildings/objects that I design for the pictures, have no client to dilute or ruin what I am doing. My practice is very different now. Before, I was sketching plein air, using the material for the basis of my ink drawings and etchings of real places, using an element of memory. Nowadays, although I still love sketching outdoors, I can travel anywhere in my head instead. The actual places do not actually exist. They are not place specific. I also love the process of play in my work in a bigger way now too.