CharlesOilPaintings

My interest in painting began in the early 1970's due mainly to a visit to the Tate. The paintings that made the biggest impression were the large scale works by American artist Mark Rothko. On the face of it these colour field paintings are simple, but the more you look the more you see, and that along with the emotional response fired my imagination. At the time I was living and working in London, starting my career in computing. My main pastime was painting military miniatures of the Napoleonic era.

By the early 80's I had relocated to Northampton and had started to paint oils. I'm largely self-taught but I owe a great deal to Northamptonshire artists Joan Blencowe and John Lockett, the former for oil painting technique and the latter for life drawing. They both gave me a better sense of what was required to produce expressive paintings. More recently I have also benefited from attending specialist courses with Martin Kinnear in Norfolk.

After getting married in 1986 I changed to working in watercolour for several years before deciding to return to oil painting, which obsession continues to this day. My technique now consists of outdoor (plein air) sketching in oil or watercolour and photographing, followed by studio working up of larger paintings. I generally take an impressionistic approach to the subject but latterly I have looked to work in a more 'tonalist' manner.

Landscape painting is my major focus, in the main subjects in and around Northamptonshire. I have learnt over the years to see the extraordinary in the apparently plain.

2016 brought the opportunity to concentrate on art more-or-less full time as my computing career wound down.

Most of my larger works are on canvas or linen whilst my sketches are generally painted on canvas board. As well as selling original works, I also sell prints of some of my works.

Since 2019 I have started to experiment with pastels, acrylics and dip pen/ink. As a result I now also produce abstract paintings, a few of which have appeared on my ETSY listing.

My website, www.charleskart.com, shows my larger studio works, some plein air sketches and some of the smaller works, including some of those featured on ETSY.