Fine Art Blog

Category: Paul James

Paul James

  • Artist Paul James – Where Urban Meets Farmyard!!!

    Paul James was born and raised in Leicestershire, where he grew up with a natural talent for art. Encouraged by his parents, he progressed artistically & with the advice of his school teachers, went on to art college to study graphic design. Paul did not complete his course & instead began to sell paintings of vintage cars and neighbours pets…more on his artistic journey in a later post!


    ‘Up The Swanee’
    limited edition on paper & canvas by Paul James

    You may be surprised to hear that Paul James is also a self-taught artist, as he is so incredibly talented you may not necessarily link those two statements! Paul is known for his very realistic, almost photgraphic looking paintings of animals and landscapes. His artworks have gained him a big following in both the UK and overseas such as the USA & Ireland to name but two and it is not hard to see why. His uncanny ability to paint animals in fascinating detail and capture amusing poses & expressions has endeared him to the public.


    ‘Dave’
    limited edition on paper & canvas by Paul James

    Paul has had the amazing success and honour of being published by not one, but several different publishing houses during his career, which just goes to show his continuing popularity and the first class art he is producing. His art takes a great deal of time to paint & we can see this in his great attention to detail, the subtle colours in the animal’s coats & the way you can see each separate animal hair in places!


    ‘Kred Gordon’
    limited edition on paper & canvas by Paul James

    A little known fact about Paul is that he is also a very talented musician and composer, he has even released a CD of his music, as well as performing for live audiences. Now that is what I call multi-talented! Although, it would not be hard to guess that Paul is an artist of many talents due to the versatility of his art, the fact that he can paint a serious picture of a landscape on the one hand and then a humorous animal the next.

    Paul was previously published by Washington Green Fine Art publishers. New For Winter 2010 Paul is now being published/distributed by Demontfort Fine Art publishers…again we will have more on this in a future post!

    Thank you

    Jessica

    Links:

    Heres some tips on how to paint animals

    Click here to view animal painting demonstrations

  • How do you use Jedi mind control on a Cow?

    This crazy thought popped into my head when I recently looked at some Limited Edition prints featuring Cows. (Ill call them cows or ‘Daisy’, it sounds better!)

    (‘Mildred’ by artist Toni Hargreaves, this is a painting and not a photo!)

    'Mildred' by artist Toni Hargreaves

    Cows seem to be a very popular theme in Art as of late but this leads to unanswered questions for an inquisitive mind like mine. Some of these artists MUST actually go to the countryside to see Cows close up because lots of artists do not work from other people’s pictures or random photos of Daisy form the internet!

    So Mr. or Mrs. Artist takes a day out to go to the countryside ‘Honey ill be back home later’ packing their lunch, digital camera & sketch book.

    After arriving, they wait for the right moment so Daisy is in the right position and either start sketching Daisy or try to take photos. Sounds simple right?

    (‘Wayne & Bruno’ by artist Caroline Shotton)

    'Wayne & Bruno' by artist Caroline Shotton

    But how long do you wait? How do you make a cow stop what its doing and POSE for a photo? Jedi mind control perhaps? but I’m guessing a Jedi’s powers does not extend to bovines! so it must be some other way.

    I mean its not often you hear a cow say ‘I’m ready for my close up Mr. DeMille’ so these artists must go to extraordinary lengths to get Daisy in the right pose for right photo.

    (‘Trinny And Suzannah’ by artist Paul James, this is a painting and not a photo!)

    'Trinny And Suzannah' by artist Paul James

    Here’s the best options I’ve come up with if your Jedi skills fail:

    1) Hide in a bush for a few hours and wait till ‘Daisy’ strolls by – don’t shake the bush or you will scare Daisy!

    2) Get a friend to dress up in a cow suit and try to ‘attract’ Daisy to come over – bit dangerous, maybe your friend doesn’t want a new girlfriend?

    3) Move town & get a job at a farm for a season but secretly keep sneaking off with your camera to see the cows! And when they least expect it…..*flash* you got your perfect photo & you can go off and paint your masterpiece

    thank you

    Russell