Jim Dowton

About the Artist

I love the process of painting, as well as the challenge and excitement of trying to produce a piece that will be pleasing to me and, hopefully, will also give enjoyment to others.

My working life was in education as a full-time primary school teacher. It was only in the last few years of school teaching, when working part-time, that I started to paint more regularly.

I have had no formal art training but I have picked up ideas and advice along the way from other artists, art groups, art demos and occasional short art courses. I mainly work with soft pastels and with acrylics, though I do also use oil pastels, pencils and, very occasionally, watercolour. My work includes quite a wide range of subject matter but my main interest has been painting portraits and the human figure.

In recent years, however, a growing interest in the work of 'cubist' influenced artists has led me to try some more experimental approaches with more impressionistic and abstract figures, landscapes and still life subjects.

I work mainly from photographs and life as a springboard for my art work and I undertake very occasional commissioned work.

Further examples of my paintings may be viewed in Gallery 5 (Portraits) and Gallery 11 (Lines of Enquiry) of the website: www.artzeit.com