Roger Gadd

Roger Gadd was born near Manchester in 1961 but has lived in the North East since 1986. He has always painted landscapes and has tried to develop his skills over the years at many classes and courses. Many of his paintings are completed on the spot as this encourages a fresher and more spontaneous response.

A holiday in 1995 led to a love of the landscape of the Western Isles. Roger has returned ever since and always finds new aspects to paint. In particular, the colour of the sand, the rocks and the sea provide endless inspiration and challenge. Commissions and sales have led Roger to produce greetings cards and a calendar each year for each of his favourite islands of Harris and Barra.

Becoming dissatisfied with some of the watercolours he was painting outside, Roger wanted to achieve was a freer and looser style. He decided to use more mixed media; pastel over watercolour, which makes it possible to draw in a spontaneous and vigorous manner. Then a cold week’s painting holiday in the Western Isles in May 2015 proved to be a turning point. He decided to work in pastel alone, on the traditional coloured paper, as this would allow a painting to be finished in the shortest time, given the cold conditions. These plein-air pastels are some of Roger’s personal favourites. Roger also paints in oils.