ARTIST and Shipley College art teacher Jeremy Taylor was welcomed at Keighley Art Club for his oil painting demonstration of a seascape.

A former member of the Yorkshire Watercolour Society, he explained that members would exhibit at Cliffe Castle and other venues.

Jeremy said he began painting for fun and taught himself. At one time Keighley Library had a large supply of art books, but now he has to go to Leeds to find them.

Jeremy spread his portfolio around the tables of Keighley Healthy Living, where the art club meets, and we saw his work was mostly traditional in style.

Jeremy explained this was because he conformed to demand, and that he actually preferred that his art to shock to the viewer.

Many customers ask for oil works from him as the feel oil provides more punch from a distance.

Art has been Jeremy’s job for 30 years and he can be seen working at art shows, exhibitions and demonstrations. His original natural history work soon had landscapes added behind the flora and fauna.

Jeremy joked that some of his inspiration is from the north-east coast, and that when young he thought the sea was always brown.

Despite the intended use of Liquin being to mix with oil paint, Jamie uses the substance non-traditionally and applies it to the entire canvas surface.

Jeremy always starts painting from right to left, and randomly rather than the textbook method of dark and light. He uses a limited palette believing this gives him a more harmonious end product.

He said that an increasingly dirty brush with white one-and-eight-half inch bristles, simply wiped on kitchen paper, blends the tones constantly. Later a nylon chisel-edged brush adds details.

A palette knife scraped on white creates waves of highlights.

The sky on the picture is dark at the top, and Jeremy stresses that clouds are not white.

The sea is roughly hatched using the dirty brush in the direction of crashing waves. Heavy and dark shadows seem to be just daubed here and there, and as usual Jeremy continues to soften the hard edges.

The beach is added, starting with pale shades and moving down to dark at the lower edge. Pebbles are added, as these lead the viewer into the composition. Later he may add some rocks.

Jeremy does not use subtle colours and he suggests painting both a dominant and a non-dominant feature, such as waves.

Jeremy talks of tone rather than colour, and after stepping back from his painting several times he showed how changes could be made and softened whilst the paint was still wet.

The paint does not begin to dry for 24 hours.

Jeremy described how holding a mirror up to the painting would reveal whether he had made a mistake.

Keighley Art Club is open throughout the summer months, unlike many other clubs.

We have a set programme which can be found on our Facebook page, and you can see some of original paintings in Keighley Picture House’s coffee lounge, as well as on Facebook.