Trout Painting

I am an artist living and working in Settle, North Yorkshire. I attended Harrogate College of Arts and Technology, and Cleveland College of Art and Design. After graduating in 1997, I began to educate myself in the basic techniques that I felt I had not been taught, starting with the fundamentals of draughtsmanship. I returned to life drawing classes, and gradually improved to the point where I trusted my technique enough to draw all of my preparatory work directly from life. I like to work from life wherever possible, building comprehension of the subject through careful observation and translation. This will, I hope, lead to the creation of well reasoned and durable images. Direct observational work has an interpretive aspect and an engagement with the subject matter that other methods can struggle to replicate. This is why this type of work has continuing relevance and appeal, regardless of the whims of fashion. In 2013 I was elected as the newest member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters