David J Coleman

I have produced several small sketchbooks for friends which follow a theme. Two of them now have been for fellow fly fishing addicts.

Producing a book of sketchbooks so all the images are consecutive and in manageable folios, is quite a challenge. Presenting them so they can be made into a book which is reproducible is even worse. I have recently been helped by a very talented Professional Book Artist called Meg Green who I met when I was at Art School. https://www.someoddpages.com/

Here is the front age of a book I made for Wylye Flyfishing Club. This is a very conservation minded group of people who love the small chalk streams that flow into the Hampshire Avon above Salisbury. They are trying to restore these streams to how they were 50 years ago with the help of the Environment Agency and the Riparian owners, a process called re-wilding; which is very close to my heart.

I have enjoyed fly fishing for about 40 years and, living in Hampshire, I have been in a position to enjoy some of the best of it. The Hampshire rivers are a stunning eco system which I have learned to understand and appreciate as a consequence. Nowdays, I am more interested in watching, observing and enjoying than actually putting up a fishing rod. Of more recent years I started doing sketches by the river and later filling sketchbooks with small paintings, as this way of doing art has taken root in my life.

Latterly I have been reviewing some of my work and realised that it is a very effective visual diary and that a narrative comes to mind sparked by each one. This is pretty important to me as time fishing has often been the time when really big ideas and solutions to knotty problems emerge.

Quite a lot of time has been spent on the Estate at Leckford in Hampshire which is owned by the John lewis Partnership and where John lewis himself used to live.

Here are a few of the earlier sketches which have evoked the mood of this lace at times when I have been very glad to find a refuge.