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Neil Collins: Watercolour exhibition: Fast Cars and Fishing Boats
2nd September to 25th September 2015
Open evening 15th September 7-9pm
A lifetime obsession for motorsport, particularly pre-war racing, and a fascination for the beautiful scenery of Cornish holidays with the children gave me my inspiration for the exhibition which I hope will be of interest to all visitors.
Through his membership of the Croydon Art Society and the Bromley Art Society Neil has been able to show his work in Bromley, Croydon, Beckenham and Ewell. Through his friend, Keith Kingham, he held a ‘one man show’ in the Kinghams showrooms in Croydon to coincide with The London to Brighton Veteran car run.
Neil Collins is a retired graphic designer living in West Wickham. He spends much of his time watercolour painting and dismantling cars. One day he hopes to be able to put the cars back together! The rest of the time is spent amusing his 6 grandchildren.
Neil left school at 15 and attended the Sutton and Cheam School of Art where he completed a two year foundation course and then joined the graphic design stream for a two year diploma course. By the end of the course, and after getting the diploma, Neil had developed an interest and a leaning towards typography so he completed a post NDD course in typography at the London College of Printing.
After his training Neil was offered a position with his former graphics tutor, Peter Wildbur, as his assistant in his design group in Bloomsbury. It was the best start anyone could wish for. Over the next 35 years he worked as a designer in corporate identity, package design, publishing, signage, PR and sponsorship. The most satisfying area of design for Neil remained typography and to this day a well designed book layout with good typography and use of space and layout gives him a great deal of pleasure.
Neil’s career in design ended when the company he was working for fragmented and collapsed. At 55 and somewhat disillusioned with the industry he turned to another interest, driving. As an Advanced Driver with the IAM for a long time he thought the next step could be to become a Driving Instructor with a view to working for himself. So, having completed the exams, for the next 10 years Neil worked as an ADI: not always the most enjoyable way to pass the time, but it gave him some spare time to develop a growing passion for painting in watercolour.
Watercolour painting was not in vogue during the 60’s and the techniques were not taught unless sought. A lifetime of visualising with markers and felt pens was of little help as the techniques were far more subtle and unforgiving. Early efforts were not encouraging. However, what he lacked in natural talent he made up for in tenacity and in time it all started to make sense. Now fully retired, Neil spends every available minute experimenting and researching for his paintings, as his wife will testify.