David Morris

I have been a Painting Tutor for the OCA since 1989 and have enjoyed seeing many students benefit from the Painting Courses and develop their abilities (some of whom have become exhibiting artists in their own right). I’m currently tutoring Painting One, Two, Three, Advanced and Watercolour and I do both face-to-face tuition at my studio and postal tuition. I am a practising artist, living in the South Cumbrian village of Ravenstonedale, where, in partnership with my (artist) wife, I run a small Art Gallery showing paintings by myself, my wife and two or three others.
br /> Besides exhibiting in this gallery, I exhibit regularly in exhibitions in Cumbria and was the winner of the Upfront Cumbria Open Exhibition in 2008. I work in most media though most often known for oil paintings and pastels. These are mostly based on my experience of the local landscape (confining myself usually to sites within a radius of five miles of home). These can vary from fairly literal studies to more poetic interpretations with rich or unusual colour harmonies. Other themes include a series of dreamlike compositions based on the village churchyard, featuring human figures and are often bright in effect, reflecting the unexpectedly pleasurable experience of a warm, sunny day in the churchyard with its huge cedar trees and 18th and 19th century gravestones. While some of these have expressionist or abstract influences, they are never quite either. I prefer to describe them as poetic.

I studied at Southport School of Art and Crafts, gaining the National Diploma in Design in Painting and Lithography in 1963 and Liverpool Regional College of Art where I gained the Art Teachers’ Diploma, afterwards teaching in secondary education for several years. Later, I was Museum Assistant at Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal and then spent eight years in carpet designing, before running popular Summer Painting Courses (with my wife) in Ravenstonedale. Besides painting and tutoring I am often called upon to give workshops and appraisals to a number of art societies. I continue to tutor the OCA courses and enjoy taking seriously the work of students of all ages and abilities.