User:Pinwelljohn

I am Colin Woodcock, know as Pinwelljohn on Wikipedia.

I trained as an artist and potter and went on to teach these disciplines to students in high schools in Northumberland for twenty-five years. Since leaving teaching in 1996 I’ve worked as a professional artist, potter, gallerist and independent graphic designer.

Beginnings
I've always been interested in creative activities - design, drawing, painting and ceramics. I started drawing, painting and making pots when I was very young. I worked at developing my practice during my teenage years through tuition at Newcastle University. In the early 1970s I trained to teach art and ceramics to students up to GCE Advanced Level and taught these disciplines for twenty-five years in three different high schools. Eventually, when the time came to move on, I left teaching and worked as a professional artist and ceramicist - and as an independent graphic designer. The majority of my graphic design work was within the music and media industry although I also worked within education, event management, business, publishing and the voluntary sector. My wife is a textile artist and in recent years we owned and ran our own gallery - selling our original work and fine art prints.

Where I Live
We live on a Hebridean island - a place of peace and tranquillity. Our house overlooks a small, secluded beach with views towards Mull, Iona, Rum and Skye. The island is a place of exceptional beauty. The outermost island within the Inner Hebrides it has been described as the ‘land below the waves’ and the ‘island of two harvests’. These epithets hint at its characteristic flatness and rich fecundity.

It has, within its shoreline boundary, the most extensive machair to be found anywhere in Scotland. Almost half the coastline is made up of white shell-sand beaches orientated in all directions. The crystal clear sea that surrounds the island cycles through a myriad of colours from turquoise blue and olive green to cerulean and ultramarine.

Add to this natural beauty the exceptional light quality found on the island and it’s not surprising the landscape sings. The island has been describes as "enchanted island where we are dreaming away the golden days there are neither hills nor trees nor anything sensational to catch the eye. The sea rolls on in miles and miles of sandy bays, with opalescent reflections in its pools and shallows. The sky stretches from horizon to horizon, with an ever-changing panorama of clouds, great banks of heavy cumulus, long. bright rows of sun-kissed cirrus, mares’ tails frisking before the wind, little dappled clouds all over with the blue peeping through. And when the sun drops towards the west a gorgeous transformation takes place, with a ‘light that never was on sea or land.’ The sky changes to orange, gold, rose, the clouds above are crimson in the setting sun, while to the east the hills of Mull stand out amethyst against a background of pale primrose, their hollows just touched with the gleam of gold. Rhum and Skye seem towering to heaven, and in the far south Jura, and in the far north Uist, lie soft like faint blue pearls."

It's some place to live and work!

Interests
I have a wide range of interest including writing, music, photography and social history.

I guess most of my Wikipedia will fall into two broad categories:


 * design, drawing, painting, ceramics, architecture and typography
 * exploration, outdoor adventure, climbing and mountaineering

Contributions
I've only just started editing and creating articles on subjects that fall within my interests and areas of expertise.