The Fylingdales Group of Artists

From an artistic family where both my parents were painters, I was born and still live in Whitby.

      During a 26 year career in communications, when all my holidays and spare time were spent painting, I was also fortunate to meet and work with other artists including my friend and mentor William Dealtry.

     It was he who told me most of the answers that I would ever need, they were of course of little use to me at the time as it was not until spending many more years  painting that I discovered the questions, and indeed am still discovering them now.

  In 1997 I resigned from my job, sold my home, bought a commercial property and opened a gallery, selling my own work, antique paintings and other artists work. Following a very successful eleven years there, I subsequently sold the gallery to concentrate exclusively on my own work.

  Painting in both oil and watercolour, my 'impressionistic' pictures are usually completed on location, summer or winter, I have a particular love of painting snow, sky and sea.

   I feel that travelling is essential to broaden the range of my work and have worked throughout the UK and Europe, in Russia, Australia and New Zealand.

     With a passion for art history I have also published a book on the Victorian artist George Weatherill and my writing extends to being a regular columnist for 'Leisure Painter' magazine.

   Exhibitions include, The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, Eton College and I have been an invited artist at Henley Royal Regatta for the past fifteen years.

   I do wherever possible paint 'on site' that said I would never be so dogmatic as to walk away from an inspirational fleeting moment, rather make  a quick note in my sketch book or on any available piece of paper and then attempt a studio painting from both the sketch and from memory later.

   When I head out to work It is very rare for me to have any preconceived idea of where or what I am going to paint, my choice of subject is governed purely by the light. I know from experience where it is likely to be good at certain times of day yet am still often undecided as to whether to turn right or left when I reach the main road and often decide when I get there according the prevailing weather.

  I paint only what excites me and on rare occasions I immediately find a multitude of subjects, but can only paint one, more commonly I walk or drive, sometimes for hours, looking for that elusive magic. Eventually out of desperation wringing a composition out from a scene that appears on the face of it to be quite unpromising, ironically these pictures are often my better works.

   Whilst I am guided by what's in front of me it is not in fact my primary concern, rather capturing the light, movement and colour to create a picture that excites me as opposed to an exact representation of that scene.

   I love to use that extra dimension afforded by thick oil paint combined with immediate brush-marks, a style which particularly lends itself to many of my favourite subjects, billowing clouds, sparkling water and deep, crisp snow.

  I would like to think the excitement that I feel when painting shows in my work and that perhaps even I can share a little of it with others.

Christine Pybus

Member since 2000