My name is Rob Cramp. I am an amateur artist originally from Australia. I was born in Sydney in 1961, where I was raised, educated, got married and worked as a town planner before moving to the UK with my wife and daughter in 2005. Here in the UK, I continue to work as a town planner.

My art is comprised mainly of pencil drawings and oil paintings. As a man of faith I draw much of my inspiration from the Grand Creator and from the beauty of the creation around me. This is reflected mainly in my drawings, which often feature animal life as their subject.

As a town planner I am also drawn to urban landscapes (cityscapes and streetscapes) as
a source of inspiration (the good, the bad and the ugly). This is a subject that is featured
in many of my paintings. I like to include images of people in my landscapes. This gives
them a sense of scale and perspective but also adds context and narrative to the scene –
Afterall an urban landscape without people serves no beneficial purpose.

As someone who works full-time, I am limited in the time that I can spend indulging my
artistic desires. I am not therefore a plein-air painter (though I do aspire to be). Many
of my landscape paintings are, however, based upon on-site drawings, to which paint is
later applied, as time permits, with the assistance of photographs as a memory aid.
Still life painting, however, does afford me the opportunity to indulge in a purer form of
artistic expression – by painting directly from what is in front of me.

Art has taught me to look at the creation around me and see what might, at a more
cursory glance, remain unseen by the observer – the way light is reflected off an object
or is refracted through water or glass; the way that shadows fall to give a sense of the
depth and even the texture of objects; the vanishing points that give perspective to a
scene; the way that colours react with each other and bounce off each other to create a
mood and atmosphere of contrast or harmony; how all of these elements come together
to create something that is pleasing to look at; and what these things teach us about the
one who created them.

I paint and draw mainly for my own enjoyment and wellbeing, but I hope that my
paintings and drawings might also be enjoyed by others.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.