David Taylor
About My Art

I work in watercolour and mixed media and I am largely self taught. What this means is lots of time spent painting stuff that goes nowhere and secondly, time spent looking at the work of other artists. The contemporary artists that mean the most to me are Kurt Jackson, Ron Ranson and David Bellamy - all landscape artists with huge talent and individuality.
I only started to paint seriously in the last few years. 'Seriously' meaning finding significant amounts of time to paint and secondly, painting on a regular basis.
I usually try to start each picture with a thumbnail sketch or better still, a very quick watercolour sketch. I take lots of digital photos, including detailed close-ups but I have forced myself to stop painting directly from them. Instead I keep them as an archive that I use for information about the details in a landscape. Usually, many weeks pass before I work this material up into a finished painting.
Producing something that satisfies me and is pleasing to others does not come easily. I find that I produce my best pictures either during a period when I have been painting a lot or when I get really involved in a subject, usually when painting it live - outside in the landscape.
Take a look at...