Thank you for stopping by to look at my paintings.

My name is Paul and I have been painting and drawing as an amateur artist for more than 40 years. Over that time, my focus has varied from simple pencil sketches to large scale acrylics on canvas to fill the empty walls of my Streatham flat. I've always enjoyed experimenting with materials but in recent years, I have switched regularly between the immediacy of watercolour pen-and-ink sketches and the richness and vitality of soft pastels.

Having spent the last decade visiting the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, I have created as series of pen-and-ink watercolours depicting scenes from the Festival. These postcard-size sketches were an inspiration to go-bigger. My series of pen-and-ink Acton sketches, inspired by my journey into work and commissioned by The Coffee House in Acton explodes the scale to A2 proportions.

My work in soft-pastels are my experiments in pure colour. I usually create a value study in charcoal on craft paper, then start laying colour onto pastel paper. Several of these are also on display at the Coffee House, and I have had several commissions for work in this medium too. Often these are rural landscapes, but I am gradually trying to widen my approach to the medium. The mish-mash of London's urban landscape, especially where it collides with nature, has long been a fascination. 

Paul Vale was born in Gloucester, but has lived in London for 30 years. He has been a theatre reviewer and feature-writer for The Stage for much of that time and is a member of the Critic's Circle.