Our Artists come from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds – subjects taught include; botanical illustration, sculpture, painting, fine art, still life, oil painting, landscape art, architectural landscapes, figure studies and portraiture..
Mariella Baldwin
Mariella Baldwin studied botanical illustration at the English Gardening School at Chelsea Physic Garden, London and graduated in 1998.
Since then she has exhibited in London, New York and Pittsburgh as well as undertaking numerous private commissions at home and abroad.
Mariella taught at the English Gardening School at the Chelsea Physic Garden for a number of years up until 2012, and at West Dean, Sussex. She has been teaching at College Arts for 10 years, including a trip to Cornwall to paint from the gardens at Trengwainton.
Julia Cassells
Julia is an award winning wildlife artist who has used her art to campaign for wildlife conservation in Africa and Nepal. She lives in Hampshire and tutors art workshops and courses in watercolour and oils. Her fluid approach, for which she is well known, is portrayed beautifully through the spontaneity of her watercolours. www.juliacassels.com
Lydia Cecil
Lydia trained at the LondonAtelier of Representational Art and tutored there for
a couple of years. She was elected to be Artist in Residence for the New Generation Festival in Florence and for the Tiapapata Art Centre in Samoa. She is a also contributing artist and tutor at Raw Umber Studios in Stroud.
Her work explores human nature and its representation. She has recently exhibited at ArtHall in Gozo.
Romy Elliott
I have been drawing for as long as I can remember. I developed an interest in oil painting at school and after completing a degree in philosophy went on to study sculpture, drawing and painting at the Florence Academy of Art from 2013-2016. It was there that I became fascinated by anatomy and physiology and since returning to the UK have been teaching fine art and working on commissions of varying scales and mediums. Whilst predominantly a portraitist, I am constantly relearning and developing new directions in subject and style. Having said that, horses and dogs are a consistent theme in my work and I enjoy using a strong light source to help me describe form, anatomy and atmosphere in a more painterly and sometimes abstracted way.
Animals are my key focus, a fact that’s not hindered by my own life long relationship with both dogs and horses. An acute understanding of their anatomy, muscle structure and movement is essential in my work.
Annabel Fairfax
Annabel grew up in Suffolk and has painted all her life.
She worked in the design studio at Colefax & Fowler and then studied photography with George Lewisnski before attending The Heatherley School of Fine Art.
Annabel has had several solo exhibitions most recently at ING and The Ebury Galleries and has taken part in many group shows including The Summer Exhibition at The Royal Academy, The Albany Gallery in Cardiff for The SWA and annually for Art For Youth at The Royal College of Art, the Bembridge Sailing Club on the Isle of Wight, The Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, & The SWA at The Mall Galleries.
Annabel was elected a member of the Society of Women Artists in 2011.
Her work is vibrant & exquisite both in watercolour & oils.
Chris Fothergill FSAI
Chris has worked as a freelance artist and illustrator, selling paintings and drawings in the Cotswolds for more than 20 years. Based in Oxfordshire he works from his studio for both commercial and private clients.
His speciality is architectural painting but he also produces landscape watercolours and illustrations for exhibitions and publications and recently exhibited at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. 2014 finds him as ‘artist in residence’ at Chipping Norton Theatre. You can see more on his facebook page!
Chris is a fellow of the Society of Architectural Illustrators.
Chris runs watercolour painting course at home and abroad. He is a delightful and inspirational teacher who exudes enthusiasm and passion for his work.
Lucas Garcia
Lucas Garcia trained in illustration ESDIP, Madrid and also in Florence at the Charles Cecil Studios where he went on to teach. He now teaches at LARA.
Leonie Gibbs ARBS
Leonie studied at Edinburgh College of Art and at Wimbledon School of Art. She was elected a member of the Royal British Society of Sculptors in 1989.
In her painting, Leonie is influenced by the Scottish Colourists and her work is exuberant and a riot of colour. The ideas for her sculptural work are drawn from the culture of the Highlands of Scotland as can be seen in her sculptures of the Pictish Queen and the Warrior King.
Leonie has exhibited widely in England and Scotland and her Falcon’s Return can be seen in the centre of Inverness.
She had a one-man show in May 2012 at The Gallery, Cork Street.
Clementine Hanbury
Clementine Hanbury is a contemporary realist painter and draftswoman based
in London.
Clementine studies her subjects from life under natural light conditions, giving
her portraiture both an intimacy and depth, creating a more genuine, nuanced
rendering of her subjects. She was awarded Best Portrait of the Year in 2019 at
the Florence Academy for her achievements in this area.
As an artist, she endeavours to capture more than just the likeness of the subject,
believing the painting should stretch beyond the bounds of pure aesthetic
concerns to exploring the human experience.
Mark Jackson
Jacko studied, and latterly taught sculpture, at the Charles H. Cecil Studios in Florence.
Since having two solo exhibitions in the UK, Mark has been mainly working on public monumental statuary, notably for the Irish Guards and The National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville.
Life drawing is a constant foundation for large and small scale figure sculpture, and Jacko also works on private portrait commissions and paints landscapes with oils.
Lucy Kent
I enjoy the immediacy of working en plein air, recording fleeting information as quickly as I can, as the colours change in front of me and my painting changes with them. I use a knife to build layers and enjoy the visceral quality of the paint itself and how it naturally behaves, juxtaposed with picking out details and enhancing parts of the scene that interest me most. Website
Victoria Mather
Victoria Mather is a journalist and broadcaster.
She is travel editor of Vanity Fair, a commentator for CBS News, and her Social Stereotypes column, illustrated by Sue Macartney-Snape, became a national institution over some 20 years, 1000 characters and 10 anthologies. Readers had the gleeful relish of recognising others (The Appalling Guests rang ominous bells) or themselves: The Embarrassing Parents. The poignant Mother at Rock is still yellowing under many a fridge magnet. The Wicked Teenager, featuring the enchanting Poppy who speaks in like, duh, yeah, whatever teen-mumble and thinks Romeo is a Catapult who died on the Titanic.
Victoria also works in the arts. Her father was a theatre director and she is a member of an Advisory Circle at the Royal Opera House, a patron of the National Theatre, and chairman of the Development Committee of Dancers’ Career Development, for which she is also a trustee. She lives in London, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and on an aeroplane with her husband John Raymond and a revolving population of 14 godchildren and a Pekingese.
Puff Morgan-Giles
Puff studied part time at Chelsea (oil painting) and Southampton (life drawing) before completing a Foundation Course at Basingstoke School of Art and then a Fine Art Degree at Winchester School of Art.
She has an extensive knowledge of materials & techniques, use of colour, tone, composition and ways of looking and seeing.
Instagram: puffmorgangilesart
Kate Rhodes
Kate Rhodes is a contemporary Landscape artist living and working in Suffolk who is well known for her fabulous use of colour. Kate is inspired by wild open landscapes and particularly interested in capturing a sense of place through layers of light, harmonious colours and bold painterly mark making. She has just had a very successful solo show in London titled “Roots and Wings” and to see examples of her paintings and to watch a video of Kate in action please visit her website
Chelsea Renton
I draw, paint, sculpt, illustrate and doodle – mostly people, sometimes landscapes and animals.
www.chelsearenton.com
David Risk Kennard
Born in Gloucestershire in 1953, David was trained at Bristol College of Art and now lives and works in Dorset where he has been for the last 25 years. He has travelled abroad widely taking commissions as far afield as Africa, Albania and the Caribbean.
Much of David’s work includes architectural landscapes which have a visionary quality to them. He was invited to make a series of paintings of London Squares, which were used to great effect in London Underground posters.
A professional artist all his life, he works in ink, watercolour and oil and combines traditional skills with a modern touch. Currently he is making woodcuts on large trees cut lengthways, and printing them by hand. His subjects are figures in the landscape.
David teaches in an informal, friendly manner. When using pen and ink, he starts the students off by teaching them how to make their own reed pens. Washes of watercolour are then used in conjunction with sepia ink to great effect, lending themselves particularly to architectural landscapes.
With oils, David encourages a bright, clear palette to make the colours sing for themselves. He has a wonderful eye for subject matter and what would look best in a composition.
Adam Roud
Adam was born in Hampshire in 1971. After graduating from John Mores University Liverpool in fine art, he returned to Hampshire to work at the Morris Singer foundry learning the process of lost wax and sand casting.
Since 2000, with a studio and workshop on Lord Portsmouth’s estate, Adam has developed his work with large and small commissions, figure studies, portraits and the main body of abstract pieces. At the heart of his work is drawing, whether from the nude with pencil, chisel and stone, clay and knife.
Weight, balance, light and shadow are at the core of the work and fuel the process in the studio. The individual pieces are part of a ‘timeline’: an evolving group.
He is interested in exploring the juxtaposition of the realistic figure, be it animal or human, and the abstract forms that can be related to it. His work exudes the energy and enthusiasm with which he works.
www.adamroudsculptor.co.uk
Jamie Routley
Jamie was born in Newport South Wales in 1982. He completed a BA Honours Degree in Illustration before leaving the UK in 2004 to study under the American painter Charles H. Cecil in Florence, Italy.
After a year of study he was invited to be a teaching assistant at the studio. He remained there as a student and a teacher for a further 3 years. Jamie moved into his London studio on the Talgarth Road, in 2008. He works exclusively from life. His work is concerned with portraiture, landscape and interior painting.
“For me, working from life, whether it be a portrait or a landscape, is essential. The subject will change and reveal itself to you over time; I never use photographic reference because this dynamic would be lost”.
Jamie’s work hangs in major corporate and private collections in the UK, Europe and America. He has recently been selected for the 2nd year consecutively for the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition. He was shortlisted to win the BP Portrait Award at the National Gallery.
