"Achieving older age and being able to look back on a life is pretty amazing.  I was born just two months after the start of World War II, 1939.  I grew up in Castelford, a West Yorkshire mining town in those days, my bedroom looked directly half a mile up a back street to my junior school, beyond which was the pithead winding gear of Glasshoughton Colliery.

Somehow I made it to the most amazing secondary school, Castleford Grammar School.  Mixed, uniform, boys wore caps, on the street we were called 'grammar bugs', brilliant teachers.  Suffice to say I excelled at all things to do with pure art but in due time and lack of home guidance (Dad had died when I was 13).  I eventually found my way to architectural studies.  Thereafter a career lifetime in design and construction in the building industry, resulting in a final quarter century as Consultany Sheard Walshaw Partnership.

So suddenly it was 2002, sale of business and retirement.

Why hadn't I sketched and painted throughout the mid years!  Life could have been so different, but there was a sudden flash or awakening, can't remember.  I picked up a brush in 2003 and together with a good pal went to night school to recall how to use paint and place a wash.  Fifteen years of watercolor painting followed tutored weekly in term time by fine art qualified Margaret Utley.  During this period I increasingly felt the need to try oils. mid 2018 jumped in feet first and immediately became hooked.  Twelve months after my first brush full of oil paint I submitted a painting to the Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Open Exhibition at Mall Galleries, London, October 2019, 'Rising Tide Scarborough'.  I was accepted.  I had been accepted previously but in water colours, 12 months oil experience - gobsmacked.

I hope you like the 7 pieces I have on display at The Home Company."

Best regards,

David Walshaw