Robin Paine
Drawn From Life
In my experience, if you want to see someone look uneasy, try offering to read them a poem you have written. My parent’s generation could happily recite long reams of poems, but in my era, in Britain, writing poetry was seen as pretentious. I didn’t start writing poetry seriously until I was living in the Unites States and doing a lot of academic writing. Somehow the use of words to construct compositions triggered poems.
I started getting ideas and phrases coming to me – including titles. My poem “Singing Beach” was published in Boston’s Museum School’s Literary Magazine, Red Letter. Since then I have paid attention to ideas and images that appear in my mind and take form.
I hope that you enjoy this selection of poems which I have illustrated.
The poems will available to buy in the coming weeks.
Shop
Breaking news!! I now have merchandise for sale. Please visit my shop page to see various high quality cards and tea towels for sale.
Coming soon will be a broader range of products including limited numbered prints as well as original artwork.
Mary Marshall Brown award
The Royal Society of Scottish Watercolour Painters awarded this prestigious award to Robin at a ceremony in 2023 for A Forsythia Bush in Flower, seen here. The painting is very large for a watercolour
Portfolio
Drawings & watercolours
I have found that watercolour is an extremely unpredictable medium that cannot be entirely taught nor entirely mastered. I therefore try to start out with a humble and innocent approach.
Oil paintings
On the practical side, when painting with oil paint, I like to work on Belgian linen canvas and apply the paint with both hog’s hair brush and palette knife.
About Robin
Robin trained at Falmouth School of Art, Glasgow School of Art, Edinburgh College of Art (BA. hons.) and School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (M.F.A.). She was a Finalist twice in London’s National Portrait Gallery portrait Award. Before moving to the US in 1992 she undertook Portrait Commissions through the Royal Academy Business Galleries. Her work is in National and International Collections and she has taught widely (including School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, School of Visual Arts, New York, Harvard Summer School, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts) with a specialty in drawing and painting from observation. She currently lives and works in Edinburgh.