Surfers Art

Roger Holmes has been painting on and off for the last 30+ years and has been fortunate that many of his paintings have sold and I have several patrons who have bought several works from him over the years.

Roger’s only art education was up to 0′Level, which for years has upset him because he really wanted to study art, but left school prematurely to join his Father and work in the merchant shipping industry in Genova and La Spezia in Italy.

Briefly Roger was able to study art at weekends in Italy under Liberti who was an established artist and Professor of Art at the University of Genova. What Liberti taught Roger has been of great value to him over the years.

Roger Holmes started selling paintings through galleries for a hobby while working in Johannesburg, South Africa for a shipping company. Roger’s work was then mostly landscape and wild life in mixed media.

From South Africa Roger moved to Cornwall to help his parents run the Crumplehorn Inn Pub and Hotel in Polperro and his work was always on display on the wall’s of the pub and the restaurant. All the work displayed there sold. The paintings of Roger Holmes also used to show in the Wessley House Gallery in Polperro.

After Roger’s parents sold the pub, he stayed on in Polperro for a while after starting his own business as a signwriter. During that time Roger Holmes had several one man exhibitions at the Claremont Hotel which was owned at the time by one of Roger’s best friends, who encouraged him to paint all the time.

Roger was a signwriter for nearly 10 years, but eventually got tired of it and wanted to get involved in the internet which at the time was in it’s infancy. He started designing websites, but has always been compelled to paint.

Roger started surfing on the local beaches after his son introduced him to surfing and was drawn to Longboarding, in fact, for a while Roger even shaped and glassed his own surfboards under the name of Lifestyle and later, Surfstix, specialising in Wood and wood effect longboards, though he did shape a few shortboards and even a bespoke woodie bodyboard for a friend.

Roger stopped making surfboards because of the chemicals and the dust which for a while affected his health.

SurfersArt.com started 0ver 10 years ago, and both Steve Andrew and Roger Holmes sold their work from the site but due to the increase in web design work, Surfers Art was put on hold.

During that time, both Steve Andrew’s and Roger Holmes work was exhibited and sold by “Driftwood Gallery” in Newquay and Ilfracombe.

Web design to a large degree, took over Roger’s life,  but increasingly, Roger has become frustrated at not having the time to paint which is the reason Surfers Art has been re-born.

Roger has been painting a lot more recently in various mediums including Watercolours, Pastels, Oils and Acrylics as well as mixed media.

Roger’s favourite medium is Soft Pastels as he can work with both hands at the same time in a much looser an expresive manner. (Roger is almost ambidextrous) he will often underpaint in Watercolour, then work in Pastels, leaving some of the Watercolour exposed.

Roger and Steve hope you enjoy our work.

Please come back regularly to see what we have been doing.