ABOUT

IAN BLACK

Painter

Ian is a self-taught landscape painter who revels in the varied landscapes of the Yorkshire Dales and beyond. Living in the heart of Ribblesdale with all of his subject matter on his doorstep he attempts to capture not just the landscapes but also the spirit and some of the humour of the Dales, with a keen interest in     history and a background in geology these two subjects are brought out in his paintings. Becoming more prolific, Ian has only been painting ‘seriously’ for a couple of years, and his paintings are becoming more popular.

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Practising primarily in oils, the paintings are an end result of numerous sketches and field studies often with a hint of humour. Ian is an artist who is constantly learning new techniques, having not had any formal training in the subject, his paintings can be seen as an evolutionary process. Not such a keen walker, Ian will often truncate a longer walk in order to paint a view with his trusty pochade box with an eye to a larger reproduction, often ignoring the more obvious ‘views’ of a subject but taking time and consideration to present an alternative viewpoint to a well-known landscape. 

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Generally working on a smaller scale much of Ian’s work is on 8” x 10” or 8” x 6” primed MDF, a ground which he finds suitable for pochades, oil sketches and final paintings. All of his originals are framed by his wife who works alongside Ian in his gallery-studio, often to the point of driving him out into the Dales to find new views!

Ian cites Peter Brook as one of his main inspirations, how he effectively captured the landscapes of the South Pennines and its humour is something Ian wants to bring out in his work. 

His feelings for his landscapes can be summarised by the words of John Constable “I should paint my own places best”