Shropshire Magazine

Keith Noble gains much of the inspiration for his paintings from the glorious south Shropshire setting that is his home and workplace. Shirley Tart catches up with him – eventually Pictures: Mike Hayward

Keith Noble with his wife Pauline and supercat Boris the Great.

The joy of a visit to artist Keith Noble’s rural idyll came in three parts. Well four, if you count a previous abortive attempt to find Keith at all!

Having finally achieved that bit, there came the view, the paintings and wife Pauline’s baked ricotta and mascarpone tart with chocolate and orange.

The last was thoroughly enjoyed while talking about and marvelling at the second, and greatly admiring the first. Add the novelty of Boris the Great, a British Blue puss with massive, all-seeing amber eyes, weighing in at a whopping 1st 2lb and imperiously heading up a feline family of four quick to check out visitors – and I remember thinking what a way to spend a Monday!

Then there is Keith.

A Lancashire lad – he was born in Chorley and studied graphic design and illustration at Bolton and Blackpool Colleges – Keith had a significant career in London.

But love changes everything and he met and married Pauline, a south Shropshire girl who was also working in the city. So, 15 years ago, it didn’t take much for the pair of them to be lured back to our lovely county. Now Keith contentedly and successfully paints, exhibits and sells his wonderful pictures and Pauline works in the world she loves so much – with and for horses. Her own mount is a former racehorse.

Happy couple, then. And a little trip out to visit is an uplifting experience. Tucked away a few very rural miles from the Clun-to-Bishop’s-Castle road, the view from their cottage is absolutely magnificent. In this county, you can accurately make that sort of statement very regularly. But on this occasion, breathtaking is hardly the word.

A long, lean sweep of lawns and borders flanked on either side with waving trees and gentle hillocks, drifts down to what Keith casually calls his shed; this is actually his studio. And beyond that, the view opens, expands and changes until set high on the horizon, you are looking at the whole of the Long Mynd in marvellous relief. On this morning it was topped with the sheen of late, silvery virgin snow, even as we sat in glorious spring sunshine and counted little blessings. Work? What work?

Which is more or less what Keith thinks as he makes his leisurely way down to the shed every day, from where there is that same magical view with the changing skies and magnetic pull across the valley.

He recalls that as a little lad he was always drawing, sketching and losing himself in ideas for pictures and designs. Once qualified, he began the London end of his career as a junior designer and illustrator, working his way up to creative director. Eventually, he and a small group of colleagues ran their own studio for about 20 years and, from 1981 to 1984, Keith lived in Cornwall where he painted and did some lecturing at local colleges.

He says: “I worked in a studio in St Ives with three girls but eventually I was doing so much work in London that I really needed to move back there.”

Keith’s ‘shed’ – actually a carpeted, insulated studio with stunning views.

But there was a bonus. Pauline was running a recruitment business in London. But eventually, the idea of her south Shropshire homeland and Keith’s thoughts of a quieter, more picturesque way of life became a reality and they headed to our lovely shire county and began to put down their own rural roots together.

Until 20 months ago, they lived over the brow of a hill in another “fabulous cottage” with an even longer view of 22 extraordinary miles.

Their present home suited in more or less every way when they first saw it and was clinched when they realised their neighbours had stables with room for just one more horse – Pauline’s! Some things are surely meant to be.

Now that Keith has insulated, carpeted, decorated and secured his studio, he and the cats contentedly wander down for another day at the easel or the framing equipment by which time Pauline herself may have gone off to Bishop’s Castle. She works at timber merchants and equestrian surface company Charles Ransford, selling wood fibre which has had its bark removed for horses (the bark is too slippy for them) at what is now the biggest seasoning plant in the UK, supplying a fair slice of the national market. She with her horses, he with his art, the cats – even the lean black-and-white stray who the others ignore – are happy as Larry.

And certainly in Keith’s case, the results reflect that. But he smiles: “Every artist can have a bad run when he might have four or five wasted paintings. When that does happen, you do think ‘what’s going on here, am I no good at this or what?’.”

Happily that spell passes and the answer to Keith’s occasional question is that he is very, very good indeed.

A Keith Noble watercolour.

Since down here we are almost as far from the sea as you could imagine, it’s almost a surprise that so much of his work is maritime – seaside, children in rock pools, ships, watery horizons and, if not the ocean itself, evocative rain-splashed pavements also dominate his wonderful pictures, most of them watercolours.

He does his own framing. “If a picture goes away, it can take time and might cost £70 or more – I can frame one for around £8. And if it’s not right, I can just do it again,” he says. Needless to say, his framing is superb.

Keith is a member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists and regularly exhibits with them. While much of his work is commissioned, he also sells amazingly well from galleries and exhibitions, whether in Shropshire, London or Cornwall.

And who is surprised at that? His evocative paintings ranging from the view over Whitcliffe at Ludlow, memory-jolting scenes of children at play, fleeting figures filled with joie de vivre, or the elegance and charm of a fine building, capture the senses. Some are on easels, others waiting for framing, more are carefully piled and ready to hang. It’s like bringing the coast, the city pavement, Keith’s world, into one little hamlet.

He exhibits regularly in Royal Watercolour Society and The Royal Institute of Watercolour Painters exhibitions as well as with the Marine Artists. And in 2004, he received the Lincoln Joyce Award for an outstanding watercolour in the Royal Institute Open Exhibition.

Another maritime watercolour from the brushes of Keith Noble.

He does paint in oil but, as a modern traditionalist, Keith’s work is mainly watercolour and he admits that the subjects he enjoys most are the coastal and architectural. He finds putting figures or little surprises onto a background much more interesting than just a scenic backdrop.

“Light, shade and atmosphere are all important and I strive for this, whatever the subject,” he says. For his watercolours, he uses the wet-on-wet technique of painting with which, for instance, sky and sea will merge rather than be separated by distinct lines or colours. Look at the real thing and see what I mean!

Keith says: “Some of my biggest watercolours might only take hours to do. I start from the top and go all the way down while it is wet. And the technical side is important. With watercolours, you start with lights and put dark on top; with oils, it’s the other way around.”

He has been commissioned to paint by the Duke of Westminster, and by an American pharmaceutical company which wanted a series of Paris street scenes. And he regularly sells overseas.

Keith has work coming out of galleries in Ledbury, London and the Isle of Wight, and later this year will be part of a group painting in northern Holland. Prices for his works range from around £280 to £1,500 – every picture a joy.

Keith at work in his studio.

It can be all-consuming. But the couple’s family life, their 350-year-old home, the magnificent views and their felines are also important. As a postscript, I left a cashmere scarf behind – posted back instantly by Pauline with a cheerful note saying: “Rescued this just before it became a cat cushion.”

When it comes to choosing people, Boris and co are not stupid, are they!

• Keith’s next Shropshire exhibition is at the Top Hat Gallery in Ludlow, May 6–24, 2008.