There once was an ugly duckling...

If you think you can't paint or draw, read on...

I barely studied art at all at school. My main focus in the few art lessons I did do involved larking about and thus failing (and failing spectacularly) to appreciate that the teacher we all took for granted, Mr Sands, was none other than the legendary Frederick Sands RI, a towering colossus in the story of the Jersey art scene. The astounding painting of La Pulente to the left may well have been painted after he got home from a long day enduring people like me. But I did concentrate enough in some lessons for him to teach me to paint skies. I am eternally grateful and would do almost anything now just for one lesson again. They say that 'education is wasted on the young'. Maybe so.

But as I failed to study under Fred, and  left the (all boys) art classes aged 15, fuelled by inordinate levels of teenage testosterone to attend the Spanish lessons along with the girls from Beaulieu Convent, I took away with me the impression that I had little or no artistic talent. And so it remained for 10 years.

It was as though I had discovered I could fly....

Many of us (as I did) enter adulthood thinking we have no particular artistic talent. But one day, in my mid 20's,  I was very ill. In fact I was off work for months, and as I recovered my wife needed to find something to occupy me that required little physical effort, but that would occupy my returning strength. It was November 1986, cold and blustery, so it needed to be something I could do indoors, that required little physical effort, and above all did not break the bank. She bought me a beginner's oil painting set. I began to paint the pre-prepared outlines, reproductions of paintings by a man who, like Fred Sands, also changed my life in a way he never realised, Peter Gilman. This little painting set provided a simple basic set of colours (all you need even as a professional-but I digress), a couple of brushes, some turps and oil and, all importantly, a little booklet where this utterly sublime painter taught you not only how to set out a palette, but also some basics on how to paint.

"How much is that then?"

After a few weeks, word got around that I was painting and people called around to have a look. I hid the pictures but they insisted. Embarrassed, I showed them my work.

And people actually started to want to buy them. Remember, I didn't think thy were any good, but that's not the point. Art, like beauty, is quite literally in the eye of the beholder.

"Can someone help me here?"

Spurred by this, I asked for some advice at a little art gallery in Hampshire (Belton and Hall, in Bishops Waltham-long gone now, but an Aladdin's cave of wonder to me in those days). I took along a couple of paintings-both copies of other artists' work. I was told to return the following Friday, because there would be a visit from "a chap you should meet'. I did-and met Tim Aldridge, an art dealer and gallery owner from London, who in those days supplied Harrods, the great department store. Tim was extremely encouraging, because he told me the truth. That I was not good enough to supply art galleries yet, but that I showed promise.

"That's good. That's not".

Things developed. Shortly after meeting Tim I returned to work and colleagues began to commission me to paint pictures for their partner's birthday, anniversary or Christmas presents. I continued to take paintings to Tim for his advice, and he was always extremely helpful, honest and ready to tell me where ~ was doing well (and where I was not doing so well!). He is probably the main reason I am a professional artist today. His ability to take me seriously, to tell me what was going well in a painting and to be kindly but blunt in explaining where I needed to improve gave me both a foundation on which to build as I improved, and hope that I could indeed reach a standard where he would feel my paintings were good enough for him to start taking them. It took years before I reached that standard, but I got there.

Joining the dots....

Eventually, in 2004, I found myself in a position to take up painting full time. I hope you can see from this story that, perhaps like you, there was a time when I did not know I could paint, and that this changed radically. But it did not happen just through my efforts, nor did it happen overnight. But with the help and support of others, and a determination to improve, I have got to where I am now.

Onward and upward!

Nor am I content to stay here. I want to grow, to develop and change. If you would like to find the artist in you, then you can find out more here.