Colin Watson

I started painting again after 40 years working as a graphic and then website designer. It takes me back to my teenage years when I painted quite a lot and the reason I went to art college. I also remember the work and fantastic skills of the illustrators we commissioned in my early working life as a book jacket designer.

Rather than painting a subject from life or reference drawings, I like the idea of illustrating and creating pictures from photos and other researched or found references. Very often copying and montaging multiple images together to create the final picture.

I liked the idea of a craftsman painting to order and I have always had a romantic notion about being an art forger.

The Ancient House

The Ancient House where I now live on left and the Old Post Office Burgh on right, 1908. Painted from a sepia photograph post card, posted back to the Post Office by a soldier in Australia during WW1. The people look a little wooden but that’s how they appear in the photograph. I’ve kept the people in their original quite ‘stiff’ poses, which was probably typical of the period.

Category: Acrylic

Orford, Suffolk

Orford sunset. Painted from photograph with a few adjustments.

Category: Acrylic