He was 12 years old and his father had just died. To cope with the enormity of the grief Phil Jackson from Little Sutton began to paint. Like any other child he had been drawing and painting since the age of about four, and he has a vague

“I’d say painting has been a saviour – it has helped me through some really hard times and been great therapy”

A charcoal picture of Paul, that Phil had done before his son died, was later exhibited at The Royal College of Art in London, Birmingham Art Gallery, Urbis Manchester, Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh and Howard Gardens Gallery in Cardiff.
In addition to this, Phil’s work has also been seen at Burton nurseries, Miguel’s Tapas bar in Neston, Burleydam Garden Centre and at popular Kingswood B&B, up in Ambleside in the Lake District.

Is there anyone in particular that has been a positive influence and inspiration to Phil over the years?
“I absolutely love Van Gogh and Walter Sickert, but I’ve been especially influenced by Degas, I really relate to him”

French artist Edgar Degas was famous for his work in painting, sculpting and drawing and also regarded as one of the fathers of impressionism.

I imagine a lot of my creativity has come from my mother, who was a teacher and a fashion designer. My sisters both now live in San Francisco and I’m currently working on a large oil painting of Hawaii that my sister asked me to do.

When he’s not painting, there’s another creative side to Phil – he is a member of a barbershop singing group who practise weekly at Theatre Clwyd in North Wales.

Focusing on the future and Phil has some exciting projects to look forward to.

He has been commissioned to produce another Hawaii oil painting and only last week sold three more of his watercolour paintings.

Phil’s speciality has always been landscapes, but in 1992, he started attending Anita Reid’s life drawing classes and began to feel as if his art has moved on to another level.

I’d always been someone who was eager to please, which is why I began painting pretty landscapes from postcards explained Phil, Then someone said to me how much better my life drawings were than my landscapes. “I wondered whether to be insulted or not at first, but then took it as a compliment. I realised that I’d always painted landscapes from photographs, yet I was painting the life models in ‘real life’ so perhaps I captured the spirit and reality a little more”

“Creating art is now very much a way of life for me “ added Phil. I’m particularly motivated by light – the way it moves and dances around. The light has to come from within the picture”

It was back in 1991, when Phil met professional artist and author Gary Sargent. He was a real inspiration to Phil and convinced him to fulfil his ambition of returning to art education and achieving some formal qualifications. He did – and for two years, Phil attended Halton College of Art gaining a B-tech in Art and Design and the place where he met great friend and fellow artist Michael Collins. He went on to study at John Moores University in Liverpool, but had to give up the course after becoming ill again. However, the highlight of Phil’s career to date came earlier this year when he won a prestigious prize at the Williamson Art Gallery’s Spring Exhibition with his painting entitled ‘Spring in your step’. But perhaps more significantly for Phil, the Gallery decided to purchase the work for their collection.“That’s probably the best thing that’s happened to me,” said Phil. It gives me the greatest buzz that people are seeing my work and appreciating it. I read somewhere that artists should try and display their work at as many places as they can and there are a couple of restaurants in Wirral also showing my paintings. I love people looking and commenting on them.