In the middle of last night I woke up thinking about the first Art teacher who taught me (apart from my mother and father). In 1949 I started Prep school age 9. I remember little about those years, except when Loxton Knight came to teach Art every fortnight, for an afternoon. I recall a tall patient man with deep-set dark eyes who asked us to make pictorial compositions in watercolour. My father told me he knew Loxton Knight, who lived in Long Eaton. He had designed the Sandeman port advert featuring the cloaked and hatted Spaniard.He was also a proficient watercolourist and woodcut printmaker.What did I learn from him - nothing. I learnt much more from my parents, who took me out sketching most weekends.
I loved Plasticine. Very early on I made a Mexican band out of Plasticine which my parents thought was excellent and kept it on the mantlepiece for years. I also was given some modelling wax which I loved, the pliability and smoothness of which I remember well. I'm sure it gave me a spatial awareness which serves me well to this day.
My teens in private school were very academic. No Art was taught, although I did develop a passion for poetry and literature, instilled in me by Jim Sanders, a great teacher. My parents asked the school to enter me for Olevel Art, although I'd never studied it. I passed, amazingly.
Later, I managed to get into Nottingham College of Art to study Fine Art.
But that's another story . . .
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