What Rob Paints

Rob Dudley has painted in watercolour since he was old enough to hold a brush; it’s still his favourite medium.  However in the last few years he has started to work in oils with increasing interest and is leading his work into some new and unexpected directions.

Rob is a painter of light and its effects on landscape, sea and estuaries. His favourite subject, and for some this might seem a little strange, is sunlit mud. He is at his happiest at estuaries when, at low tide, acres of shining mud are revealed in all their shimmering glory and he’s painting it! ‘Bootiful’ as they say down in Devon, his home for over forty years.

And when he is not in the studio…

He teaches. Over the years he has gathered a wealth of watercolour knowledge, knowledge that he freely shares in his art tuition videos, numerous articles for the Artist and Illustrators Magazine and in his books ‘Painting Rivers from Source to Sea’ and ‘Painting Trees’ (the latter being co-written with Siân)..

SCRIPT WRITING

In addition to his other talents, Rob has also co-writtten scripts for the BAFTA winning animated TV series ‘Shaun the Sheep’. Rob even makes an appearance in the Shaun the Sheep movie, as do several of his paintings.

Education

Rob had always wanted to be an artist.  Well, not quite ‘always’; prior to that he wanted to be a footballer and play for his beloved West Ham United. But art won over football, a lack of footballing ability having a lot to do with it. After a foundation course at Harlow he went on to Exeter College of Art and Design where he gained his fine arts degree in 1980.

Rolle College (University of Exeter) followed, where he studied for a Postgraduate Certificate in Education and, more importantly, met Siân.

Habitat

Rob was born in the Essex village of Abridge, leaving the county to move to Exeter in Devon in 1977. Apart from a short excursion of a couple of years in Cornwall he has been in Devon ever since in the small town of Ivybridge.

For a landscape painter like Rob Ivybridge is very nearly the perfect place to live. His home is just a short walk from the wilds of Dartmoor, and the inspiring River Erme which flows through the town. A short car journey takes him to the coast. Locations and subjects from this area of outstanding natural beauty have featured in numerous paintings of his over the years. 

The South Devon coast is a favourite place to visit with paints and pencils. Mothecombe Beach is his favourite location; it is stunning at anytime of the year but when the holiday season is over and the visitors have left, Mothecombe takes on a atmosphere and feel all of its own. It’s at these times that Rob will visit, often the only person on the beach, and with paint and paper try to capture its unique beauty. There’s also a very handy cafe in what once was the local school situated in the car park field just up from the beach that often has chocolate cake…but you’re probably not surprised that he knows that.