much better than I could. The six-year difference in Eighteen years ago Chris realised that as a wildlife
our ages seemed irrelevant. I thought I should be painter he could live and work pretty well anywhere.
able to draw as well as he could, so I used to spend He and his wife decided that if they were going to
hours and hours in my room trying to paint better move it might as well be somewhere nice. “We looked
and better. I suppose all that relentless practice paid at a map of Britain,” he said, “and decided to try the
off because from about the age of 14, my paintings Scottish Borders”. It turned out to be the best decision
were considered good enough to sell. I took them we could have made. For one thing it’s quiet so
down to a local gallery and away they went. there are no interruptions when I’m painting. We’re
“From a very early age I decided to concentrate on surrounded by lovely farming country, rolling hills
birds. My father was very interested in natural history and fantastic wildlife. If I want inspiration all I have to
and every weekend, weather permitting, we would do is walk outside my front door and it’s all there.”
be out walking in the Surrey countryside. We all had Chris is fascinated by the abstract patterns that
binoculars and gradually I learned to distinguish the reveal themselves in landscape. His paintings in
various birds both by their plumage and their songs. I acrylics and oils are as much studies of light, colours
became quite passionate about them. My library was and patterns in the landscape as they are depictions
full of beautifully illustrated bird books and I used of wildlife. So much so that often one has to look
to drool over those pictures. I spent hours trying to hard in his paintings before one actually discovers the
emulate them. Little by little, painting birds became wild creatures. It’s a technique that brings a refreshing,
my life.” altogether different perspective to wildlife art.
But, as his father well knew, the life of a young “In the garden just outside our house,” he said,
painter can often be laced with pain. Not surprisingly, “there’s a great clump of Butter Burr. It’s a broad-
he wanted his sons to have a formal education, one leafed weed, a bit like rhubarb. I’d seen it every day
which might guarantee them a reasonable living. for seven years and never given it much thought, but
Chris therefore followed his elder brother in earning then one morning, with the sunlight striking the plant
a degree in biology at Nottingham University, but in a certain way, I suddenly saw all these marvellous
within months of his graduation he realised that he abstract patterns in the leaves. It just made a fantastic
was just one of perhaps two or three thousand other image so I sat down and painted it. It turned out to
biology graduates that year who were chasing the be quite a successful picture. It sold quickly. I made
same 20 jobs. prints of it and they also sold quickly. Which just goes
It was then that he spotted an advertisement to show that sometimes the best ideas for wildlife art
seeking an illustrator with the Dorset Heritage Coast can be literally right by your own front door.
Project. “It was only for a year,” he said, “but it “Like a lot of representational art, it’s all about
turned out to be the perfect job for me. It basically seeing things in a different light, appreciating qualities
involved walking the entire length of the Dorset coast that don’t often reveal themselves to the casual
illustrating its spectacular coastal views and sketching observer. That kind of inspiration can leap out at me
its birds for promotional pamphlets. I was 21 and it at any time. For example, in the centre of Galashiels,
seemed the world was my oyster. I had such a good our closest market town, there’s a footbridge that
time that after my year was over I’d completely lost crosses the Gala Water and, to be honest, at that
interest in a career in biology. I knew exactly what I point the river is little more of a sludgy canal with
wanted to do with my life and that was to spend all shopping trolleys and traffic cones half submerged in
day, every day, producing artwork. I absolutely loved the murky water. Walking over that little bridge and
doing it. I bought a second-hand drawing board from looking down at the Mallards that are always dabbling
an architect and set myself up as an artist/illustrator. in the shallows I had the most extraordinary flash of
That’s how it all started.” inspiration: the beautifully coloured Mallards milling
Twenty-nine years on and Chris Rose’s enthusiasm about and the wonderful oily patterns on the surface
for painting wildlife is undiminished. “I think of of the water. If I can crop out all the unpleasantness, I
myself as being incredibly fortunate in being able to can see quite an interesting composition there. Yes, it
do what I do,” he said. “I’m never going to be rich should make a lovely painting.” I’m sure it will.
in monetary or material terms and yet I’m not at all
For further details on Chris Rose visit the artist’s
bothered by that. I am enriched beyond measure in
website www.chrisrose-artist.co.uk
terms of the sheer pleasure, the joy, the deep-down
satisfaction I derive from being so close to so many
beautiful things.”
Left: Run-off. Oil on board.
49
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