Albert Seaman's Paintings, Drawings and Essays

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Welcome!

This is a gallery of Realist Fine Art, including Paintings, Drawings and related Articles and Essays. The viewer is invited to tour the pages and enjoy the pictures and descriptive notes. The Showcase will be updated from time to time with the addition of new paintings and other items of interest.

About the Artist:

Albert Seaman was trained originally in airframe design engineering during World War II. Afterwards, he re-mustered into packaging and plastics machinery design and manufacturing. He attended Croydon School of Art in England as an external student, where he studied contemporary techniques in painting. With his small family, he moved to Canada in 1958, and in 1962, settled in what became the City of Brampton.  In 2005, he moved to Port Hope in Ontario, where he is re-building his studio, and focusing on the pursuit of Fine Arts. The new location provides an almost unlimited wealth of subject material waiting to be enjoyed.

In keeping with a considerable interest in the history of society, Albert has served the community in several capacities such as library boards, historical societies and various advisory committees to the Municipal Council. He has researched, written, edited, illustrated and produced books and essays on topics related to community history and architectural preservation, for which he received a Civic Award from the City of Brampton in 1979. The picture at the right shows Bill Davis, then premier of Ontario, launching the book "Heritage Brampton - 1979", with a few comments on the artistic record of his hometown. On the left is Ken Whillans, who was mayor of the city at that time. Albert is on the right.

Most of Albert's art work is now produced in watercolour, pen and ink or alkyd materials, frequently with a focus on landscapes and architectural subjects. A fairly strict realist style is used in most cases, although photographic reproduction is not the intention, unless required specifically for record purposes. Since student days, he has, like most others, experimented with different styles of painting, but maintains that realism makes it easier for viewers to appreciate the message that the picture is intending to convey.  

About the Pictures:

Starting in kindergarten, watercolours are the usual medium for introducing most people to the joys and frustrations of recording their artistic thoughts.  Embracing a wide range of characteristics, from subtle transparency to solid opacity, water based paints were originally finely ground pigments suspended in water, with a binding agent such as gum arabic to hold the colour in place on the support when dry.  Transparency was realised by using thin washes, allowing the paper, or other support material, to reflect light back through the pigment.  Opacity was achieved by applying thick coats of pigment.  

Without delving into the technicalities of manufacturing methods, suffice to say that since our society has become industrialized, and particularly since the 1960s, many new developments in paint production have introduced an extensive range of new painting materials to the artist.  In some cases, this has resulted in new techniques and new types of tools with which to achieve the required results.  Although relatively unchanged in concept, traditional "transparent" watercolours have benefited from developments in the chemistry of their production.  Advances in polymer chemistry have been adopted in the manufacture of many types of fast-drying, water-based paints, both for artistic and commercial purposes.  For the artist, these are usually known as "Acrylics".  They are normally used as solid (non-transparent) colours, and because they dry quickly, they are not always suitable for the ponderous painter steeped in the traditions of oil paints that can be moved around on the support to achieve subtly blended transitions.  

The advent of artistic grades of alkyd paints has bridged the gap between slow-drying traditional oil paints, and fast-drying acrylics.  They have the solid brilliance of oils, but dry in a fraction of the time.  Some of the pictures included in this Web site have been painted with alkyd materials.  Many are watercolours, and most, if not all, of the black and white drawings are pen and ink.  

It sometimes takes more than one attempt for the artist to achieve precisely the required result in a painting.  Occasionally it may never happen.  Watercolour is a particularly unforgiving medium and changes of mind or direction can often mean a restart.  More than one of the pictures in this gallery are the result of several attempts to get it right!