Back in the Summer, we launched our Summer Scenes Art Competition – we asked you to embrace all things Summer and create a masterpiece that portrays how it makes you feel. We received a wonderful selection of artwork and are happy to announce the winner! A huge congratulations to Mark for his winning entry.
Here’s what Mark has to say about winning…
“My interest in art started late 1990’s, with Bob Ross and Frank Clarke, who both taught painting on TV making it look so easy and accessible.
My preferred choice was watercolour, as it seemed to have so much variety and versatility. Some years later, my wife bought me a watercolour set, but I never had the confidence to give it a go, and all adult learning classes were during the day whilst I was at work. The watercolour set sat in the cupboard for many years until 2018, when I was in a bit of a bad place mentally, and my wife suggested I got it out and had a go to relax and take my mind off things.
I had no idea on how to start, so turned to YouTube and looked up some videos. I found a couple of artists I liked, again making it look easy, Charles Evans and Mathew Palmer. This is where my journey began, so had a go, and initially they weren’t bad, but I realised I had to be able to draw, so switched to graphite drawings and found I was pretty good, particularly animals, leading to a few friends asking me to draw their pets. Lockdown soon loomed, and although I worked right through, I used all my spare time to explore and experiment further, leading to me trying acrylic paints and pastels too.
Everything I have achieved has been self taught from videos on YouTube, some books, experimenting and trying different things to find my own style and techniques to achieve the end result. Earlier in the year a friend suggested I entered some artwork into an exhibition in culver square, which I decided to do, and one of my pieces was selected as a winner of one of the categories, which was a real shock to me. Another friend suggested I enter this competition, which I was quite hesitant about, as I thought the standard would be really high, but thought it would be worthwhile to hopefully get some feedback, not expecting anything other than that, and was really shocked to find I had been selected as the winner!”
We hope you enjoy looking through the artwork and it reminds you of the warmer Summer months! View the other shortlisted entries below.
