From There to Here

A blog exploring the journey through drawing and painting made by artist David Finch.

My journey has lasted a lifetime (it’s not over yet!). I discovered I could draw and paint well at a very early age with an enquiring eye for seeing the beauty in things around me. Even now I try to see things differently and will only draw or paint what I want to capture. I unlike the phrase’ that would make a nice painting’ with the suggestions that I should paint it.

My journey started at school with art always being my favourite subject. Not because I was thought how to draw and paint, I was certainly was not at school, but it gave me the time in the day to explore. This is how I developed my craft.   I drew whenever I could, even using different coloured stones to etch images into the playground slabs while others raced around the playing games.

I drew at home, mostly people and scenes around me. This picture is from my bedroom aged 19, just before I left home, I still have it and often think about the times I gazed out of the window at this scene thinking about life…….well, girls mostly!

I really discovered painting and drawing at art college in Walsall in the early 1980’s with an inspirational tutor and an extremely lively artistic social community. Boy George used to live opposite the college and we would see the wondrously outrageous clothes he and his mates used to wear and we thought that anything was possible.

I took a BA Hons degree in Graphic Design at Wolverhampton Polytechnic, as it was then, and achieved a 2:1. My interest during these years was more to do with composition and designing in a particular format. I studied photography history and printmaking and took a job at the Royal Photographic Society in Bath running darkroom printing classes. This really developed my eye for seeing and creating balanced compositions.

I was also fortunate to meet some of the most renowned photographers of the 20^th Century; Cartier Bresson, Bert Hardy, George Rodger, Don McCullen and Linda McCartney. My degree show was based around a National Geographic photo essay on the indigenous Berber people in Morocco. This photo from the series  is one of my favourite images. I often wonder what became of this family.

I moved to London to take up a position at an advertising agency and hated it! Talk about ego’s! I designed packs for VHS videos and worked on singles releases for the music papers NME and Melody Maker. My only fame here was to have my face illustrated screaming on the early cover of a film called The Strangeness, which I believe you can still buy on Amazon. I’m not even in the film!!

After one year, I moved to Bristol then to Gloucestershire teaching art in secondary and tertiary education, which I loved. 

My work Has developed over the 45 years from explorations into fine watercolour paintings of birds influenced by James Audubons Birds of America drawings , gouache landscapes, Lino cut printmaking and finally to acrylic painting on canvas or wood panels which is where I am now.  

As a contemporary artist I travel widely and gain inspiration through the light and colour in landscape and how this differs around the world. In my work in education I have been lucky enough to spend time in different places sketching and photographing compositions for work I then produce in the studio. Light and colour feature in all of my paintings leading the viewers eye on a journey into another place. I always believe that if you hang one of my paintings in a room it changes the whole feeling in the space.

My travels have taken me throughout Europe, India, Africa, South and North America. I like to capture landscape from different viewpoints and am always looking for a shape, contrast or juxtaposition of elements to make an exciting composition. I try to capture as much as I can in my sketchbooks, preferring to draw with just a simple black biro. Here is a drawing and finished painting of the table cloths a café owner had hung in the forest next to his café at Krk National Park in Croatia.

I exhibit at The Gate Artspace in Gloucester and I have paintings in The Monks Kitchen in Gloucester Cathedral. I am a director of Oriel Q Gallery in Narberth in Pembrokeshire and show my work regularly there. I live in Pembrokeshire and Gloucester which gives me wonderful opportunities to paint landscape in the changing seasons.

I have spent the winter drawing in Tenerife and gathered a lot of source material to make three large paintings for my exhibition at The Gate Artspace 25^th - 31^st May 2026. Please come and visit if you can.

I am currently planning a six week solo show (July – August 2026) on the island of Spiekeroog, one of the Frisian Islands off the north coast of Germany.  A beautiful UNESCO recognized archipelago where there is only walking and bicycles allowed. Here are three paintings from this exhibition. You are all welcome to come! I have a Verinissage (opening view) on July 3^rd 2026.

David Finch

www.davidfinchpaintings.com

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