Our Queen celebrated her diamond jubilee in 2012 that says that she has spent 60 years on the throne. History and historical events provide me with endless inspiration, trawling through the internet has and will continue to provide ideas and future inspiration for new works of art.
I am often asked how long it took me to create the portrait of the Queen. It took over three months from finding suitable reference material to preparing the canvas.
Did anyone buy your prints, a question I am often asked, the answer is yes. Several prints were supplied to a gentleman who runs a masonic website where he sells various products related to that movement. Many lodges have paintings depicting the Queen.
Prints were also sent off to an exhibition in Aukland New Zealand, the export department of the present Government hold events all over the world to promote British goods, several orders from art dealers were received following this event.
Many people have asked me why I spent so long in Telecommunications and how and why I paint. Radio was something I got involved with very early on in my life. My Dad was a fireman and being curious I wanted to know where he was going when the Fire Engine would drive at speed past our house. My curiosity led to me learning and gaining knowledge about how to build a radio receiver I developed my interest to the point where I took myself off to South Shields Marine College to learn more about Telecommunications, later on in life.
I built a receiver to pick up the transmissions from the Fire appliance and later adapted it to cover other parts of the radio spectrum, radio is an aspect of the physical properties that surround us, radio waves can be natural or man-made, radio engineering is quite complex with a lot of mathematical formulas. Would you believe Art is similar to radio it's technical like physics and it does contain mathematical patterns? I also became a radio ham callsign G4YDM to answer the question of why do I paint its simply a derivative of physics and technical skill and of course it is creative.
Why one skill came before the other I have no idea, maybe it's locked away somewhere in our DNA? or is it a product of nurture over nature.
I always paint in oil on canvas which is prepared before I draw on the picture from which I will build up several layers of paint, Why oil, well I have tried other forms of medium but don't find anything like oil when it comes to the finished product, oil and a vibrancy about it which makes the work stand out.
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The Queen of England-oil on canvas.
