John D. Petty

My background is in graphics and the making of camera ready artwork for print reproduction. Since I took early retirement I have concentrated on drawing and painting the agricultural landscape of the East Riding and more specifically the Holderness area on the north bank of the River Humber.

It is a flat and intensively farmed landscape and I have many reservations about this kind of monoculture, nonetheless, I find the challenge of depicting the flatness or the uniformity of a big field of crop to be one I don’t tire of—what to do with a landscape with so few vertical accents? And in spite of this industrial uniformity there are some places where I can hear the skylark and the cuckoo as I sketch.

The work always starts from sketches made on location, but I am not attempting to make accurate representations, rather I am attempting to convey something of my experience of being in that landscape; a landscape to which, despite my reservations, I have a strong attachment.

Drawing is what I enjoy most but I also paint in acrylics and I attend a life drawing group every week because I feel that it keeps my observational skills in tune and just because I enjoy it.

See John's work on Flickr here