Gail Wareham NAPA

My Acrylic work is inspired by my surroundings, both urban & rural. I feel that nature provides us with an endless source of material, and I like to embrace this in my work. Colour vibrancy is important to me; making strong colours work together in a natural setting gives me personal satisfaction. Having been in Crete for the last 7 years I have seen a different spectrum of colours in my surroundings, and at first it seemed impossible to get these colours to sit naturally on a canvas, but with time & perseverance I managed to find a way to capture the colours with Acrylics in a way that just wasn’t possible with other media. I have used Acrylic paints for many years, and have developed a way of painting with them that gives a contemporary feel to what can only be described as very traditional subjects. My initial work with Acrylics was to apply them to a support using muted, pre-mix tones, in a light, almost transparent manner. However, this changed around 5 years ago, when I started working on larger canvas and really felt that the paint needed to speak more because of the size – it needed to have visual volume. So I now use Acrylics straight from the tubes and rarely (only for certain technical effects) water the pigment. Some areas of my paintings are now quite impasto and I love the feeling of depth this brings to certain subjects. I teach in Acrylics too. I find that many traditional oil paint users are quite intimidated by Acrylic paint, but it gives me endless joy to see their faces once they master the techniques to use this amazing medium. I studied art at Grammar School back in the 1980’s and went on in later life to study again at College as an adult student. Until 2008 I ran a small business creating personalised house plaques and carried out demonstrations at shows in the South of England. I didn’t start teaching en plein air until 10 years ago, and it is now a large part of my career. The thing is, that however much I love to teach and pass on my knowledge of the Acrylic medium, there is a little piece of me that wants to show my personal artwork too, so I get involved with as many exhibitions as possible whether they are in Crete or in the UK. I am based in Hampshire when in the UK which gives me a great central position for getting out to other Counties for exhibition purposes.