Self-taught landscape artist, TONY ALLAIN tells Sarah Edghill about his love of colour and light, and how his extensive travels have influenced his work
TONY ALLAIN WAS FIVE YEARS OLD when he was caught drawing butterflies on the wallpaper in the family dining room, and the artistic bug never went away. As a small boy, growing up in the Channel Islands, his spare time was spent sketching – often ink drawings from life – and as an adult landscape artist, he paints vibrant and dynamic work that celebrates the colour and light that he sees in the world around him.
Completely self-taught, he was lucky enough to have a good art master at primary school who recognised his natural talent and enthusiasm and encouraged him to continue. Tony says “he was a wonderful man” who took him under his wing and introduced him to watercolour, which was a natural progression and enhanced his ink drawings and guided Tony towards Impressionism. Sadly, he died after just a year of mentoring the young artist, so that was the end of his formal training. From then on, Tony was flying solo.
Today, his work has become highly sought after and can be found in many leading galleries, as well as in private and corporate collections. Tony is a member of the Pastel Society London and the Royal Society of Marine Artists, among others.
tonyallainfineart.com ▸
Pastels found me 45 years ago, via a chance meeting.
An artist friend used to make his own pastels and gave me a bunch of misshapen homemade sticks to try out, which was a lightbulb moment for me. In my early work in watercolour and oils, which I practised for about 25 years, I tended to be a tonal painter using lots of ochres and earth colours. The first time I picked up a stick of pure pigment, my whole outlook changed, and I was charged up with light and colour. This was an extension of all those years of drawing and sketching. No more Mr Grey! No more brush washing! No more paint mixing! I was getting instant and immediate results and, as I’m an impatient painter, pastel is well suited to my way of revealing my vision.
Colour and light are my motivations for choosing a subject.
The inspiration I get within the landscape comes from seeing the effect of light falling across a particular area – maybe a mountain with snow peaks – or the way shadows skip and dance over the land, or the hard edges created by the facets of rock. I favour the light and mood of early morning and late afternoon: the light sparkling on the water, t
