Michael Bliss

I am an artist based in Otley, a little market town between Harrogate and Ilkley, best known for the beautiful Chevin Forest Park and for boasting the nation's only 20p shop.

 

I work in mainly watercolours and acrylics. In watercolours I paint street scenes and townscapes, depicting day to day life in Yorkshire towns, especially Bridlington, a town that I have grown to love over the last few years.

 

I like to paint the parts of town that are often overlooked; the ordinary streets, alleyways, shops and cafes that people walk by everyday and don't give a second glance.

 

When painting in acrylics I work on large canvases producing work heavily influenced by the little pocket size war comics my grandfather used to buy me and my brother every month.

 

Drawing inspiration from mid-twentieth century British history and culture; old black and white detective movies set in smokey industrial England, war films with plucky and resolutely cheerful Tommies fighting against the odds, gaudy and mass produced covers of penny dreadfuls or some heroic deed or achievement that fires my imagination.

 

I hope my work conveys my love of the subjects I paint, be it a shabby alleyway in a small town or a sleek RAF fighter, they are all part of the patchwork of my life and I hope you enjoy looking at then as much as I enjoy painting them.