Alex Poyner

I have been creating seascapes for the past 8 years but have been in awe of our British coastline for a lot longer than that, growing up around Chichester Harbour. Being part of a family of keen sailors has also given me opportunities to explore other beautiful seaside spots, particularly on the south coast. Currently living in London and splitting my time between London and Emsworth I am looking forward to painting some more urban scenes and pockets of the country in the cityscapes.
The techniques that I use were shaped at Falmouth Art College and Winchester School of Art, where I trained as a print designer for the fashion industry specialising in screen print. For the last 9 years I have worked for Fairbairn and Wolf Studio as their Head Designer, creating and innovate through print design and who I still consult for.
I create my original seascape pieces through the family of screen print methods. After sketching the scene I hand paint the foreground, buildings, greenery, sea, buoys and boats in many layers through the mesh of the screen. This allows me to be expressive while keeping a clean, crisp feel to the colour. I then screen print the sky in a block colour to further enhance the motion in the rest of the painting. Finally, I screen print my line drawing over the top in white or black to bring the narrative of the painting together.

I create up to 5 original edition of each scene which all vary in application of colour, state of tide, seasons and weather. Giving each original edition a completely different feel, while having the same narrative as the only part which is replicated is screen printing my hand drawn line drawing as the final layer. While I love creating works through screen print methods there is sometimes nothing better than painting directly onto canvas.

I create a smaller collection of paintings and sometimes screen print the background before I paint onto it. I build up these paintings through layers of acrylic paint and inks and draw back into them with graphite and charcoal.