Neil Pittaway - Working Process

Working Process

Neil’s drawings, paintings and prints are developed from extensive research and sketches produced from direct and indirect observation. He uses many different skills, methods, techniques and processes to create richly layered tapestries on the pictures’ surfaces. His drawings and etchings employ a detailed network of line, bitten deep into copper plate or drawn using traditional dip pen and ink whilst his paintings employ more spontaneous yet complex layered marks drawing on the luminous qualities of the paint’s pigments. Everywhere Neil travels he works directly from the subject using sketchbooks to record a journey; in recent years this has included trekking extensively in the Nepal Himalayas. These records are then used directly and indirectly to create finished works that capture the essences of time and place

Artist Statement

Neil Pittaway’s works reflect ideas from East and Western sources and perspectives such as Anglo-European heritage, transatlantic connections, Asian landscapes, gothic revival architecture, urbanness, satire, illustration and narrative. His work incorporates and explores these identities through direct and indirect observation creating complex and seemingly agoraphobic, perspective spaces; a labyrinth, which reflects the built and natural environments and echoes the monumental histories that make up our collective European and International identities, our heritage.

(Above) Neil painting at St. Moritz Switzerlan

(Above) Neil with his sketchbook in Langtang, Nepal and other images of Neil working

As well as working from imagination Neil enjoys sketching from direct observation

through visiting remote regions of the World, capturing the many magical places

and landscapes he has visited these have included the Indian and Nepal Himalayas,

the Georgian Caucuses, Peruvian Andese, Alps, many countries and places in

Europe and world wide including the USA, India, Nepal, China, Syria, Georgia, Egypt

and Peru. You can view a selection of the sketches produce on these trips by

visiting the Sketchbooks 1 and 2 folio pages on this site.

(Above) Neil sketching in Switzerland on

his Tour Du Mont Blanc Painting and

trekking trip

(Above) Neil working at Ronda, Spain

(Above & below) Neil inking and printing his Etching plate

(Above) Neil painting on the Tour Du Mont Blanc circuit and at Gosaikund, Nepal

(Above) one of Neil's bitten etching plates with printed etching

(Above) Scrim used to wipe back the inked plate (Above right) Neil's Polished etching plate

As well as painting and drawing Neil also creates very

complex original prints based on cultural heritage and

visual histories, using the etching process which is a

process where by an image is drawn with a needle point

onto a pre-prepared wax ground on a copper or zinc

plate, the drawn image is then submerged in a tray of

acid and the exposed drawn lines are etched into the

plate surface, (the wax ground that is not exposed

resists the acid).

Once the bitten acid process is complete the wax

ground is cleaned off to reveal the copper or zinc plate

with the exposed bitten lines of the drawn image,-

(These have been etched into the plates surface, see

the image on the left). The plate is then inked by

scraping etching ink into the bitten lines and then

cleaned back to leave only the etched ink in the

etched lines. (See the images above)

(Above) Image shows one of Neil's etchings after just been printed

from an inked plate.

(Left) Images showing part of Neil's etching process with detail showing

inked plate and printed image showing the vsarious working stages of one

of Neil's Etchings.

Neil has won many Awards for his work including the British Institution prizes for both drawing and printmaking, Ashmolean Museum Oxford Award and the Arts Club London Excellence in Drawing Award. His work has also been featured in many publications including drawings commissioned by Enithamon Press, London for an Anthology of London Poetry and prose. He has had some of his printmaking work featured in the Great Artist television series for Channel 5, (UK) and DVD film painting at the Eden Project in Cornwall (UK), also interviews and work broadcast on BBC Radio.