Sit back and enjoy
My name is Mike Stanton, I retired several years ago allowing me the time and freedom to explore my creative side and thus keep my mind active.
As an apprentice in the reprographic side of the printing trade I was fortunate to have my day release, and trade training, at the prestigious SLADE school in London. Later in life, a career change saw me as a Technical Author/Illustrator specialising in highly detailed drawings illustrating hard engineering machinery.
To relax after work I started painting for myself, both in oil and water colour, as a keen photographer I had plenty of subjects to choose from. I was encouraged to enter art shows, and was lucky enough to secure sales, My '5 minutes of fame' came in 1988 when one of a set of fine line ink drawings (See 'FINE LINE DRAWINGS') commissioned by the London Manorial Society for the Greenwich Maritime Museum, to celebrate victory over the Spanish Armada (1588), was presented to HRH Charles Prince of Wales.
My inspiration comes from observation of life and the people around me, and the result of three golden comments made by my mentors that lodged in my (very much) younger mind:
'Every single snapshot ever taken - if carefully explored and cropped accordingly - can be worthy of exhibiting, so look again!
The borders of your work are the confining walls to your viewer - so don't let their eyes escape or their attention drift. The secret is in the detail, get it right and it’s not noticed, get it wrong and everyone will notice.
Capture the viewer in that first instant, hold their attention long enough for your product to register, and then justify their initial attention
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