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David A Parfitt RI

Biography

David was born in Cornwall but lives near Bath. He is a landscape painter, working with watercolours and water-based media.   
Although David knew that he wanted to draw and paint from an early age, it was many years before he could devote himself full time to painting (working as a civil servant for 27 years). ‘I had no art training and am totally self taught, but managed to paint while working and I eventually started selling my work in local galleries. This encouraged me to make the change to part time working so I could develop my painting further. Only in 2007 did I make the decision to go full time as an artist, helped by the fact that our children had left home’.David was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water colours in 2011.
He won The Neil Meacher Sketching Prize in the RI 200 Exhibition (2012) and the Frank Herring award in 2014.

Artist Statement

I am passionate about watercolour, with its fluidity and uncontrollable nature; finding how the medium can be used to express and convey a feeling for the moods and atmosphere of the landscape.  

I see my paintings as fairly representational and my aim is to create something which has a sense of place without looking too contrived or deliberate. The whole approach for me is about experimenting, learning and developing as I attempt to push the water-based medium as far as I can. I am currently obsessed with the idea of trying to make paintings without the use of opaque or white pigment. All the while trying to bear in mind Lucien Freud’s words ‘The painting, in order to move us, must not merely remind us of life, but must acquire a life of its own’.

The continuing evolution in my work has also resulted in some changes to the process whereby I have found that, in the past few years, I have spent an increasing amount of time working in the studio. In previous years I completed around 60% of my work en plen-air when I felt that being outside in all weathers, getting the information first hand was a lot of what the process involved. I still believe that it is essential to work on paintings outdoors, especially as I enjoy the challenge to get things done quickly and simply but more often than not these days, I take long walks with my sketchbook, a small box of watercolours and a camera, using the sketches and photographs to make studio based pieces where I can give more thought to experimentation, or just work purely from memory.

I am rather obsessed with the use of sketchbooks; they can take the form of a holiday ‘diary’, drawings during a day walking in the landscape, or sketched paintings on location.  I will also draw from the photographs I take, sometimes adding paint or making preparatory studies for larger studio paintings.

Publications

The Artist April, July, November & December 2015
Artists & Illustrators Magazine April 2013
Somerset magazine – January 2011
The Artist – August 2008
Lifelines; The vital dry stone walls of the Mendip Hills AONB (2008)
50 Wessex Artists (2006)
Somerset magazine – October 2000
International Artist – January 2000