275 Paintings

It’s an incredible number! I can’t quite believe it myself, but when I checked my inventory on my Artwork Archive account, there it was. A magic – and almost impossible number.

275 acrylic paintings. And all sold.

How it all began…

I’ve always loved painting. Even from a young age. I think I was aged about 8 when I had one of my drawings – of a horse – published in the local newspaper. My mom always encouraged me, and my efforts were always rewarded with a smile and a biscuit (or three!).

One of my favourite subjects at school was, of course, art, and together with English, these two A-levels enabled me to pursue a sports degree and then a teaching qualification at university. However, work as a police officer and then a senior officer in education meant my love of art took a back seat for many years.

In 2010, whilst employed as a Director of Education in Devon, I finally set up an easel in the corner of my bedroom. Working 70 hours a week left me very little free time, but by then, we had already bought a house in Portugal, Dave had retired from the police, and our dream of living abroad was rapidly taking shape.

And that dream, for me, definitely included a paint-spattered easel and an extensive collection of tubes of acrylic paints and well-worn brushes. So I set to work in every free minute, just experimenting with the paints, learning how to mix and balance things. And quickly discovering that I didn’t like the uniform surface of canvas at all, preferring to prepare my art boards from scratch.

My first real painting…

I can remember this one took more than three days to paint … and you know what the proverb accredited to Benjamin Franklin says: “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Yep, I had three beautiful mackerel fish from the local market balanced on a plate in my studio for this one!

I painted about 20 pieces in total in a traditional style. They were okay – nothing special. But the desire was there. I just needed more time. So, with some trepidation, but knowing it was the right decision, I handed in my notice. We packed up everything and finally made the move to the Algarve. We were ‘home’ and my painting could begin in earnest, in my very own studio space in the basement of our house.

The turning point was this painting:

It was a copy of one of my favourite west country artists’ paintings. John Hammond. Sadly, no longer with us, he was a real inspiration to me. At one local exhibition, seeing my enthusiasm for his work, he kindly left me his sketchbook to look through as he went off to lunch. I sat there for the entire hour, enthralled by his work. The above painting was one of my favourites, but sadly out of my price range. So I went home and recreated it. Full size. As best I could. And then, happy with the finished piece, I went to our local picture framer and asked them to mount and frame it for me. The man behind the counter said, “Oh, you’ve got a Hammond there. We love his work.”

Once I’d got over the shock, I confessed it was my own work. A copy.

“Well,” came the reply, “let’s frame it up to match the original then.”

It still has pride of my place on the wall of my studio.

But I knew I needed to create my own style. Something recognisable. And different.

My New Wave movement…

This was the moment everything changed. The painting that set me free:

I can recall that day so clearly. It was an old photograph of Dave’s, taken years ago in Devon, long before we moved to Portugal. Three fishing boats at Beer, perched on the shoreline, waiting for the tide to turn. I held the photograph in my hands (hey, this was before I had a laptop set up in the studio!) and looked at the vast expanse of plain blue sky in the image. How could I interpret that in a different way? With something that was a bit more interesting than just covering the gesso-primed surface of the board with a mass of blue paint?

I sketched out the boats, then started drawing curves in the sky. Waves to match. And then the sand followed the same pattern, divided into sections. The colours came together so easily, with the rule that no two hues or tints sat beside each other. I wanted colours that would bounce off each other without clashing. The result? A painting I was proud of. The start of something new.

My ‘New Wave’ style was born.

That was in October 2011. Since then, I have painted over 100 New Wave paintings, with over half of those as direct commissions for clients. And including some ambitious, sizeable pieces, and some challenging, but ultimately rewarding triptychs:

Diversifying…

It was at our very first pop-up exhibition, held at the then Holiday Inn hotel here in the Algarve back in the spring of 2012, that I was asked to paint something different. A wonderful older couple, Ted and Helen, adopted us on that first morning that we tentatively opened the doors to our event, and they came to see us every day after that. On the last day, Ted asked me if I could paint pets, as they had a beloved dog they wanted a portrait of. I said that I didn’t know, but I was willing to try.

And so my love affair with painting pet portraits began. With the darling Winston:

I look back on almost 60 pet portraits later, and a string of happy clients, and recognise this was a major turning point for me. Winston’s portrait gave me the confidence to paint other subjects. House portraits. The old doors and windows of the Algarve. Sand paintings. Wild and bold flowers. Mandalas. Colourful, traditional costumed dancers. Even a couple of actual portraits.

And with every painting came an enormous sense of achievement. Immense satisfaction. And the immediate desire to paint even more:

I think my first love will always be my New Wave style. What I like most is how the energy, the light, and my careful combination of colours and shapes breathe life into a scene. That they are each distinctive, unique paintings. I’ve never found anyone else who paints this way. I like that!

I’ve taken a breather from painting at the moment. But all my original works are available as gallery-quality framed prints on canvas or aluminium. Working with our partner agency here in the Algarve, Photos on the Wall, I am confident that if you see something you like in my galleries or here on my website, they can transform it into a special piece for your home or office.

The future…

Of course, I am still busy creating. An artist never stops! My new project is one that excites me greatly. I’m taking inspiration from the Old Masters and transforming Dave’s wonderful Algarve images into digital paintings, using the latest AI-technology.

Embracing the future. Drawing inspiration from the past. Developing something new.

But that’s for another blog post…