David moved to Barnes in search of green spaces and open vistas. He left Maidstone Art College and moved to London, gradually moving diagonally across the capital: Hackney, Stoke Newington, Islington and after a stint living and missing trees in Red Lion Square, Holborn, (home to several Pre-Raphaelites) he eventually ended up in leafy Barnes. All that was over 45 years ago and it is said once you arrive in Barnes you never leave.

David worked with some of the best designers in the industry at Pentagram, before setting up his own design company which, through the years, expanded to employ over 20 staff and an enviable high profile long term client list, including Land Rover (David designed the oval logo), Jaguar, Lloyds Bank (he drew the horse) Rolls-Royce plc and Barclays to name but a few. While he really enjoyed being involved in design and strategic projects, David realised running the business inevitably took more and more time away from the design projects he really loved. So, over a period of months he reduced the size of the company, sold his office, and started working from home. Retaining a few favourite clients (Land Rover, Claridge’s and Bentley Motors etc) David developed more time to explore his passions: designing, painting, drawing, photography and fly fishing.

What am I working on now
At the moment I am drawing a portrait at the Barnes Atelier. I have drawn at the Atelier almost since it first opened and I love it. They organise excellent models in a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere, providing the time and guidance to really develop drawing skills. I am also experimenting with high speed photography; capturing a subject, in this case water droplets at the moment of impact which takes place within a thousandth of a second and is virtually impossible to observe. It took me three or four days to take one photograph. The images is being displayed during the Barnes Music Festival exhibition at St Mary’s church in Barnes. I enjoy producing artwork one minute and taking photographs the next. To me it’s all about image making and I believe one discipline helps the other. 

Why do I paint
Because I always have! I saw an artist painting during a family holiday in Cornwall when I was about 11 or 12, and announced to my mother I wanted to paint. She bought me a tube of black and a tube of white oil paint and a couple of brushes, with a promise that if I was still painting after a month she would buy me some colours. That was it, at the age of 12 I knew exactly what I wanted to do: go to art school and be an artist.

Studio or plain-air
Depends what I’m doing but generally I prefer the studio. Luckily I have a house where I can devote a room to design, another to take photographs and a third to paint. In fact the whole house has become a studio! Luckily my wife, Sue, is also a Barnes Artist.

Secrets in Barnes
Living on the Common and next to Beverley Brook we are aware of the abundance of wildlife that comes to life in the evening when most people have gone home. The kingfisher tweets down the brook (one actually flew into our house a couple of years ago – where else would that happen in London?), we regularly hear owls, see woodpeckers and bats, and the family of Barnes swans often swim past our kitchen window. There are also more fish in the brook which provides food not only for the kingfisher, but a heron and an occasional cormorant as well.

Favourite bit of kit
Although I love using my cameras, oil paints and my box of Faber-Castell polychromatic pencils, if I was really stuck on a desert island I would choose a pencil, a rubber and a very thick Fabriano sketchpad (I’d probably take a guitar too, so I could learn to play a little better than I do, and of course, a fishing rod!).

Favourite artist
Hmmm that is really tricky; there are so many old masters and modern artists I really enjoy looking at, and London is full of opportunities to see wonderful artworks. In my teens, while attending a foundation art course, I loved the technical skills of Van Eyck and did a copy of the Arnolfini Portrait, which I sold to help finance my way through college. I still have the life size drawing I produced (see left) which I scaled up from a picture in an art book borrowed from the local library. I enjoy Euan Uglow, Jenny Saville, Diarmuid Kelley and many, many more… I also enjoy Instagram because there you can see a constant flow of wonderful talent.

Why I enjoy being part of Barnes Artists
Barnes Artists started with a glass of wine round a kitchen table. It was Katie James’ idea which lead to one of those ‘we could do this, we could do that’ type exchanges. The sort of discussion you often forget and move on after the bottle of wine has finished. But not so with Katie. Next thing I knew another meeting was arranged: more wine, more people, more chat. I went off and designed the logo and by the third meeting Barnes Artists existed. We commissioned a website, organised an exhibition and sat back, amazed at how many artists lived in Barnes and wanted to be part of the group. It has been a fascinating and enjoyable journey from which I and many others benefit, not only because of the huge talent base but also being part of a warm friendly group.