In common with many Wapping Group members, my training and background was originally in graphic design and then advertising, following which I did anything that would earn me a living as a freelancer. Eventually this led me into lots of illustration, mostly book covers, and from there into the world of fine art gallery paintings as a marine artist, specialising in the historic ships and scenes that had fascinated me as a child, though why I do not know. These studies tend to be big studio paintings in oils which take weeks or months to paint, and it was while I was in search of some relief from this – something lighter, something more responsive and immediate – that kind colleagues in the Royal Society of Marine Artists offered to sponsor me as a guest of the Wapping Group and so get me out of the studio.
This was wonderful, a different kind of art to enjoy, and – as others have found – the companionship and friendship of the group was a delight too, artists by nature tending to be solitary creatures.
I carried on working in oils outdoors for about ten years until I decided to switch to watercolours, partly because I felt I had gone as far as I could with oils, partly because I felt that watercolour presented a bigger challenge, as indeed it still does, every time I try. But that’s the joy of the Wappers. We go out every Wednesday to try or fail, then try or fail again, and once in a while we feel we may have learned something. We try to improve our game. And meanwhile the Group – friends, fellow artists, all of us facing the same challenges – is there alongside us to sympathise, commiserate, offer advice, and cheer us on.
It has been a privilege for me to serve the Wappers as their Chairman and then President; but always, always, to be just one among equals in a proper artists’ society.
For more information please visit Geoff’s Website WEBSITE TBC
