Colbeck Art
Jan Colbeck-Illingworth
Pastel Painter
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My interest in art began at my Grandfather’s knee, a keen watercolourist, he would illustrate the logs written by my Grandmother on their journeys through the waterways of England, during the winter months he would use these references to produce full paintings and I would ‘help’ him. Weekends were spent in the London galleries, especially the Tate, studying the works of Van Gogh, Kandinski, Dali and Picasso amongst others.
I attended Kingston Art College and sold watercolours of local scenes and wild crazy abstracts in oil or gouache reflecting life as I saw it in the hustle of the ‘swinging 60’s. In 1990 I ‘discovered’ soft pastel and studied with the late Cumbrian soft pastellist Christopher Asshton-Stones and went on to attend courses and work with some of the greatest artist of our time including the School of Soft Pastel at St Quentin, Northern France.
Teaching
As a qualified tutor taught art for 10+ years as Senior Adult Education Art Tutor for both Huddersfield and Calderdale Colleges as well as a number of Residential Adult Educational Colleges including several years at Burton Manor Summer Art School where I specialised in teaching Soft Pastel along with watercolour and acrylics.
I love teaching and get as much, if not more, pleasure from my students successes than I do my own and am delighted when their work both sells and is recognised. For many years I worked as a Professional Demonstrator for SAA, Inscribe & Daley Rowney Art Materials promoting the renaissance of Soft Pastel as a full painting medium.
I have been a regular demonstrator for many Art Societies in the Midlands and North of England and tutored many Painting Workshops and Courses both in the UK and France.
Exhibitions
I have been exhibiting and selling my paintings since the 60’s from street corners to the Mall Galleries in London both as one person and group selected exhibitions. My preference is to exhibit in obscure and unusual places and donating a ‘gallery fee’ to charities such as Cancer Relief/Research and the Heart Foundation in England. Shortly before leaving the UK I was delighted to realise that I had raised in excess of £5000 for Charities.
2007 saw my first exhibitions in the Charente Maritime, the first exhibition saw my painting ‘Lazy Days’ winning the Grand Premier Prix, my work in Sanguine has collected prizes too.
Commissions
My commissions have included a wide variety of exciting subjects – landscape and seascapes, abstracts, Trompe l’Oeil and many pet portraits including the Crufts and Top Stud Dogs of the Year. Currently my work is in collections in UK, Europe, USA, Canada and Australia.
I am especially inspired by both the modern pastellists who produce huge compelling dominant paintings, and the 18th century portraits of Maurice-Quentin de La Tour and the Venetian Rosalba Carriera illustrating the power and versatility of Soft Pastel as a full painting medium.
I believe soft pastel is the most exciting and adventurous of all the painting mediums as it enables me to capture the images and feelings in textural living colour without having to wait for drying times.
I use pastel on a wide variety of surfaces such as fine papers, home made surfaces, and specialised pastel board, my favourite is fine glass paper. I cannot confine myself to just one subject, so many things inspire me from vast landscapes vistas to still life, portraits or just a single bloom in the garden. I love to experiment and, since moving to France, I have been exploring the use of Sanguine for portraits and figurative work.For me my art education is continuous ~ studying the masters, observation,
painting and drawing most days
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