The Early Years…

The first picture to capture my imagination was the print hanging on my Nan’s living room wall. V.E. Day Celebrations by L.S.Lowry. I used to try to count all the little people in the picture and figure out what was going on. I remember how it didn’t look ‘real’, but it still made sense. I liked it. I learned more about Mr. Lowry as I got older, and I’ve come to regard him as a kind of grand master of the school of painting which I particularly enjoy.

I was often drawing when I was a child because I liked comics and used to copy the Garfield cartoons (the cat in a comic strip created by Jim Davis) out of the newspaper. Other artistic endeavours I remember include: 

• Drawing a picture of an athlete running over the finishing line in a race for a poster celebrating the Olympics when I was in Infant School and the teacher was really impressed with how I’d drawn the five Olympic rings in the logo and made them look like they were all interlocking.   

• Designing a medieval scroll type of thing in High School about the story of Beowulf and the English teacher gave me five stickers.  Stickers were awarded for good work.  You were lucky to get one, never mind five at once.  I also wrote and illustrated a children’s story for an English project which I called Peter’s Garden and the teacher really loved that too. 

• A summer holiday Art project, to set up a still life arrangement at home and make a series of drawings of it.  One drawing had to be in line only and another had to include line and tone.  One version had to be in watercolour paint and another in pencil crayon.  I liked tea and biscuits (and still do) so I set up a plate with Custard Creams and Jammy Dodgers on it, two cups on saucers with spoons, a plastic milk jug and a shiny metal teapot on a stripy tea towel.  In the shiny teapot I could see my own reflection as I sat there drawing, so I included a tiny version of myself reflected in the teapot looking back out of the picture at the viewer.   

• I became interested in self-portraiture during A Level Art.  I made a painting of my face as a jigsaw and made the jigsaw look like it hadn’t been fully put together yet, with some of the pieces waiting to be slotted into place. 

My Art teacher at Brighouse High School really encouraged me to pursue Art and the school bought some of my A Level work when I left in 1996, including the ‘Tea & Biscuits’ still life drawing. 

The Musician…

Returning to Yorkshire after finishing College I sold one or two pictures, but I can’t say that I had anything like a style or subject of my own at that time.  I was becoming more interested in songwriting and started to experiment with music I’d written. Performing at local ‘Open Mic Nights’ I found I could turn some heads for the right reasons and one thing led to another.  I got a three-piece band together and we played in pubs doing songs I’d written, along with a couple of things I liked by Buddy Holly. 

Songs with good stories and imagery in them are the ones I enjoy most, so I started to listen to my favourites and tried to learn things about singing and songwriting from them.  They were usually musicians who could carry a song by themselves without a band playing along.  Soon I was trying to sing like James Taylor, play the guitar like Bob Dylan and the harmonica like Neil Young.  I remember I liked the MTV Unplugged concert with Neil Young a lot. 

In 2002 I played a little gig in the upstairs room of a pub in Huddersfield and afterwards a man introduced himself and explained he ran a small independent record label.  I could record an album and they would release it, and we’d see what happened.  Now this was getting exciting. 

For the following fifteen years I prioritised my music and tried to make the most of every opportunity that came my way.  Somehow, I managed to: 

• Record a song with the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band.

• Sell out the Square Chapel Arts Centre in Halifax (plus a few other venues) several times.

• Move to Brighton for two years and study at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music.

• Sell a few thousand CDs.

• Sing live on numerous regional BBC radio stations.

• Accompany the acclaimed folk/rock band Fairport Convention on a thirty-date national UK tour in 2016 as their special guest.

The tour with Fairport Convention was a fantastic experience. I’d start each of the concerts with a twenty-five-minute set.  I timed it to perfection with seven songs which I thought showcased my repertoire and musical ability.  Most were upbeat, one slow, a couple included harmonica, some with a fingerpicking style, others played with a plectrum.  Ric Sanders, Fairport’s fiddle player (and a thoroughly splendid fellow) would introduce me, and I’d find myself on stage singing Into The Sun, Raised On Rock N Roll, Hard To Believe It, Huddersfield Town, Here For You and (I Think I Hear) Destiny Callin’.  Fairport would come on and play my last song with me.  I remember Dave Pegg (Peggy) fancied playing Raised On Rock N Roll, but I chose James Dean instead. 

I loved this so much that it became the catalyst for me to form my own band as soon as the tour was over.  I did, and we continue to play today, whenever and wherever we can.  The album we made in 2018, simply entitled Roger Davies & His Band was my attempt to create something which served to sum up my adventures in music from 2002 up until that time.  

My Essential Kit…

There are specific reasons why I use the materials I choose to work with.  Here is my shopping list for everything I need from the art supplies store and the reasons why I favour them:

• 3B Pencils - 3B grade pencils make soft, smooth, dark lines.  It’s definitive but also easy to rub out.

• Staedtler Erasers- When you use an eraser to rub something out, little bits of the eraser can end up sticking to the paper.  That doesn’t happen much with this kind of eraser.  

• Medium (and occasionally thin) Willow Charcoal Sticks - I like to get a good, strong drawing down first to establish the composition.  I’ve always loved to draw with charcoal because of the dense black lines it creates and the way you can smudge it to create texture.  

• Paper - I mainly work on Saunders Waterford 140lb Not Paper.  This is a very absorbent cotton-based paper which soaks up the paint quickly and prevents it from running.  It’s also slightly textured which enables me to achieve a variety of effects with charcoal when I draw.  It feels smooth and soft to the touch and is robust enough to withstand several layers of paint.  

• System 3 acrylic paints - My usual palette consists of Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow, Emerald Green, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red, Burnt Umber, Velvet Purple, Warm Grey and Paynes Grey.  I like acrylic paints because they dry quickly.

I like to put 48mm wide masking tape around all four edges of the paper, so when the painting is finished, I can peel the tape away which leaves a clean, crisp edge all the way around the picture.