David Hurrell studied art at North East Essex Technical College (Colchester) and St Martins’ School of Art and Design (London) between 1973 and 1977. After graduating with an Honours Degree in Graphic Design and Illustration he worked in the publishing industry as a freelance illustrator for sixteen years. His work encompassed a broad range of subjects ranging from detailed natural history studies for field guides, cottage gardens for collector plates, architectural perspectives for property developers, and figurative illustrations for childrens publications.
During this time he achieved considerable success in a parallel career as a landscape painter in watercolour. His paintings have travelled to the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia and Arctica and are well represented in the Southend Borough Council Civic Art Collection.
Since 1992 David has been employed in the printing industry as a graphic artist and pre-press technician and painting has become one of a number of hobbies. Time, being in short supply, means that he rarely works to commission, preferring to paint to please himself. Favourite subjects include the sea walls and marshes of the Essex coastline, which combines with other pastimes of rambling, observing wildlife and a passion for old boats and rural architecture.
He is an amusing and gifted communicator and, as well as making occasional forays to lecture at art societies, he has been a regular and popular member of the visiting tutorial team at Broadland Arts Centre in Norfolk since its inception in 1989.
David is a member of Essex Wildlife Trust, the RSPB, the Society for Sailing Barge Research, the Leigh Society and Southend Art Club. He has played cornet for the town brass band for over thirty years and is Teacher in Charge one morning a week at a County Music School.
Currently he is writing and illustrating a book about the Essex Marshes and the old sailing barges.
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