'Quirky' is the main description people use to describe my work. Others describe it as looking through a fish eye lens of a camera. However it's described, the most important thing for me is that my work is different and that it is a style of my own.
'The need to bend' as I describe it whenever I start to sketch a new piece of work, is something I can't resist. The flowing movement of my pencil as I stretch and distort is really quite theraputic and the finished result pleases my eye and most important to me, pleases other people.
It has been with me for quite a few years, possibly five or six, maybe more. I remember looking out of my bedroom window and watching everyday life come and go - people - cars - bikes - the postman - the dog waiting for it's owner outside the corner shop and the paper boy who dropped his bike as he went in to collect the newspapers. I became interested in the terrace houses that surround the shop. I noticed how different they were and thought about how and why each had changed over the years. I had to paint these houses and record what I saw through my window, but my priority was to paint the corner shop. I took several photographs and began to sketch. Following many attempts I discovered the only way to include all viewpoints was to distort the images. I began sweeping and curving, stretching and bending and somehow eventually arrived at a composition that I liked and The Corner Shop was completed (originally on board) and filed away unseen by anyone other than family, friends and work colleagues. Many years later I decided to repeat it on paper and add it to the other Yorkshire Life paintings to form the series of five.
Fast forwarding to August 2009 whist in Whitby with my family, I stood at the whalebones looking towards the Abbey. Ever on the lookout for new material, I took the photograph and painted what I saw. I had by then discovered acrylic inks and used these for the first time and emphasised some of the features in thick, black lines (not approved by many but true to my nature that was ok by me - I don't always conform to the rules.)
This was the start of my 'Yorkshire Coast' series which was introduced to Whitby Galleries later that year and began selling in January 2010.
It's a style that has proved popular ever since, possibly because it is a contemporary alternative to traditional Yorkshire Coast art.
Hopefully it will stand the test of time.
'The need to bend' as I describe it whenever I start to sketch a new piece of work, is something I can't resist. The flowing movement of my pencil as I stretch and distort is really quite theraputic and the finished result pleases my eye and most important to me, pleases other people.
It has been with me for quite a few years, possibly five or six, maybe more. I remember looking out of my bedroom window and watching everyday life come and go - people - cars - bikes - the postman - the dog waiting for it's owner outside the corner shop and the paper boy who dropped his bike as he went in to collect the newspapers. I became interested in the terrace houses that surround the shop. I noticed how different they were and thought about how and why each had changed over the years. I had to paint these houses and record what I saw through my window, but my priority was to paint the corner shop. I took several photographs and began to sketch. Following many attempts I discovered the only way to include all viewpoints was to distort the images. I began sweeping and curving, stretching and bending and somehow eventually arrived at a composition that I liked and The Corner Shop was completed (originally on board) and filed away unseen by anyone other than family, friends and work colleagues. Many years later I decided to repeat it on paper and add it to the other Yorkshire Life paintings to form the series of five.
Fast forwarding to August 2009 whist in Whitby with my family, I stood at the whalebones looking towards the Abbey. Ever on the lookout for new material, I took the photograph and painted what I saw. I had by then discovered acrylic inks and used these for the first time and emphasised some of the features in thick, black lines (not approved by many but true to my nature that was ok by me - I don't always conform to the rules.)
This was the start of my 'Yorkshire Coast' series which was introduced to Whitby Galleries later that year and began selling in January 2010.
It's a style that has proved popular ever since, possibly because it is a contemporary alternative to traditional Yorkshire Coast art.
Hopefully it will stand the test of time.