User:Jimmorganart/sandbox

During my early training I studied with a fine art tutor, his course covered, pen and ink wash drawing, oils, print making with plates and screen, film and photograph, sculpture and ceramics. From this broad base I decided that I would follow a career path into product design and architecture. I studied for a BA (hons) in Product Design and followed this with a Masters in Industrial design. This led to a career in industry which covered modular exhibition system design, specialist architectural elements and ultimately and more recently the construction of mass transit terminals including underground stations, airports and railway stations. So I have been drawing all of my working life, all be it the last twenty years has included the use of 3D Cad I have had a pencil in my hand most days. I have to say designers who can still draw by hand are a dying breed! After almost 40 years in industry the sparkle and excitement of large projects has died and about 4 years ago I decided to renew my original interest in painting and printmaking for pleasure. During the last couple of years I have been rediscovering my love of paint and colour. I work in both water colour and oil on paper, board and canvas. For me the watercolours are my summer passion as I spend most weekends sailing on the East coast of the UK. A homemade brass watercolour pallet a few brushes and a half a dozen quarter sheets of paper are so much easier to use on the on the boat to pack and handle. What is more they dry quickly and don’t smell, the cabin of a sailing boat is a small space for wet oil panels which won’t dry for days! I feel there is always room to learn more and to grow as a painter learning from other masters and to that end I have studied with Alvaro Castagnet, Steve Hall, and Mary Gilkerson all of whom have challenged my preconceptions and pushed my abilities. The work I am producing today is full of vibrant colour with good strong darks helping to make the light shine out. There is a nice variety of brush strokes, washes and fine calligraphy. A lot of my recent work has been very nautically focused over the next year I look to work on more abstracted landscapes and shorelines. The excitement of painting has once again got a grip as my everyday working life now gets in the way of my painting the time has arrived to set out on a new career! To quote J M W Turner “Painting is a strange business”