|
|
 |
| |
Kenwood House
The Men’s Pond
The Viaduct Pond near the Vale of Health in watercolour.
 The
Tree with the Hole on the Sandy Path to the Toll House
Michael Toohig |
Escape into the landscape
Artist Michael Toohig is in
love with the great outdoors, writes Dan Carrier
COMMERCIAL illustration is a dying art. With computers and digital
photography the need for an artist who can put together an image
has diminished, a fact that means the traditional hand-to-mouth
existence of the artist continues into the present day.
Michael Toohig has managed to eke out a living as an illustrator.
If you go to Waitrose and buy packet of dried fruit, it has
a still life by Michael decorating it.
But, as a new exhibition at Lauderdale House reveals, his talents
lie not just in producing images for companies with products
to sell, but as a landscape artist.
Michael, 50, who lives in Gospel Oak, has chosen Hampstead Heath
for his subject. Although this is a departure from his commercial
work, even this has helped put food on the table. Three years
ago he was browsing a map produced by the City of London, who
look after the Heath.
“It was very boring. Full of information, but hard to read,”
he reveals.
This gave him the idea of producing a map of the Heath using
his illustrations. He took months to produce a detailed illustration
and then hawked his work around printing companies until he
discovered one prepared to take a gamble and produced 5,000
copies. Placed at the tills of shops in Gospel Oak, Highgate
and Hampstead, it sold out, and a second print run is under
way.
He said: “I got bored after about eight years of doing
fruit for companies. I got a reputation for it: he’s the
man who does fruit, go to him, people would say.”
But even this sort of work has dried up.
“There are lots of people in the world who want to be artists,
but 97 per cent of them actually have to do something else to
make a living,” he reveals.
“But nowadays with computer technology, the traditional
commercial artist is virtually redundant.”
Working as a commercial artist means Michael is well versed
in many styles.
“As a working artist you have to be able to do what people
want.
“There are some who are known for one thing, others who
are known for different aspects – but I am a jack of all
trades. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed. Fruit for eight
years? What a bore.”
His walks on the Heath with a collapsible easel have produced
20 paintings – 16 in watercolour, four in oils. I walk
there every day, and I know the feel of the place. I spend summer
evenings there and I go and work. When I painted the Viaduct
pond, there was some guys there fishing: I was there painting,
and we were both doing our own things with nature.”
Michael grew up in north London and studied art at Harrow Art
College.
He said: “I came from an arty family – my father was
an architect for a building firm. Each year his company had
an art competition and each year myself, my sister and my parents
would work hard on our entries.”
A stint in America – he spent 10 years working in California
– made him more aware of his love of working outdoors,
which pushed him further towards painting landscapes.
He continues: “The light was Mediterranean. For an artist,
it made you want to head outdoors and work, and when I moved
back to London I brought this with me.”
|
|
|
|
