I was born and brought up in Anstruther, a fishing village in the 'East Neuk' of Fife in Scotland. Though returning often to my homeland, I have lived in the North West of England for half my life. I am married, with a son and daughter, and now a lovely grand daughter! I was educated at Waid Academy, Anstruther, Fife, and took an Honours degree in Astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh. I entered the teaching profession, and have taught Science, mainly Physics, for all my working life. I have recently taken early retirement from the post of Head of Science at Penketh High School near Warrington, and am teaching part time at Tower College in Rainhill, Merseyside Other interests: Having opted to teach instead of becoming a professional astronomer, I maintain a deep interest in Astronomy. I have built telescopes, observed and photographed the night sky, and have taught Astronomy in adult education, on and off, for many years. I now have a small observatory in the back garden! I have been writing poetry for some years now, though it tends to be overshadowed by my painting activities. I have had many poems, including a collected booklet, published, and have won several competitions, most notably the Cardiff International in 1993. I have a novel on www.pabd.com. I am passionate about cricket, despite being Scottish, and play guitar.
Though Fife still remains a never-ending source of pictures, a recent inspiration is the magical city of Venice, especially its carnival figures, and the exotic costumes and colours of japanese geishas.
I complete about 70-100 paintings a year. I have exhibited regularly in the North West of England, where I live now, but Fife remains my main inspiration and my real home. I have had 10 solo exhibitions at the Pittenweem Arts Festival in August, an event which has finally, and deservedly, reached the national press and the BBC. As well as England and Scotland, my paintings are in personal collections abroad, including Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, and the USA, most notably in the home of Michael Steele, ex bass player with the Bangles!
Pastel is one of the oldest and purest forms of painting, using pigment with virtually no binder. It is pure colour which never fades or alters. I love pastel for its possible variety of textures, from the most delicate overlay to a rich, dense impasto; for its range of colour from the subtlest tints to the most intense primary hues. I like to paint fast and without detail, with no long waiting time for layers to dry, and pastel is also the perfect medium for this. The challenge of using pastel is, in the end, to persuade the viewer that the world can be represented, in all its variety of colour and texture, with coloured dust.
Equally, there are pleasures and advantages in oils and acrylics. The ability to create thousands of colours and tones from a few tubes of paint many of my oils are painted using nothing but prussian blue and burnt umber with white, with a few touches of local colour. Many of my paintings have an acrylic underpainting in monochrome.
My pictures are mostly inspired by my homeland of the East Neuk of Fife. To quote Vincent Van Gogh: What strikes me here...is the light, and the clearness of the air. I am sure that if he had discovered Fife, he would never have gone to Arles!
Painting is not so much about making marks as making choices [Bethan Rayner]
A picture should not show how a place looks, but how it feels [Vicky Cole].
