Tony Cowlishaw is an established professional artist, born in Shrewsbury, based in Nottingham since 1972, working in oil and watercolour media, who has exhibited at Nottingham Castle Museum and Art Gallery and the University of Nottingham Art Gallery. He exhibits his work at Craft Shows & Art Festivals throughout the country. Several hundred paintings are sold throughout the country each year and are in collections, not only in this country but throughout­ parts of the world.

Tony Cowlishaw exhibits original watercolour paintings, which include rural and coastal landscapes of the United Kingdom of Cumbria, Yorkshire, The Cotswolds, Norfolk and areas in the south of England as well as marine paintings. These are painted in the traditional English watercolour style. His policy is to sell original paintings, not prints.

Tony demonstrates and gives workshops at Art Societies and Art Clubs throughout the country and is also a judge for art exhibitions. In early 2004 he released his first instructional DVD on ‘ The ‘Basic Techniques associated with Watercolour Painting' and a subsequent DVD on ‘ Coast and Marine Watercolour Painting' in April 2005 and Rural Landscape Watercolour Painting in 2007, to support his teaching work. In May 2005 he was invited by the organisers of Living Crafts to present a series of watercolour painting lectures/demonstrations at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, the largest craft show in Europe, and has been demonstrating there each year since. Also in May 2009 he will be demonstrating at the Living Crafts Show at Blenheim Palace. Tony also demonstrated the art of coastal & marine watercolour painting at Art Materials Live at the NEC in November 2005. He writes regularly for the magazine ‘Leisure Painter’ and has also written for the ‘Paint’ magazine.

He also specialises in portraiture in oils and over the past few years has completed fourteen portraits commissioned by the University of Nottingham­ including portraits of Their Graces the Duke and Duchess of Rutland which hang in Rutland Hall at Nottingham University completed in 1987, as well as many private commissions. The Nottingham University portraits have recently been catalogued and published by the Public Catalogue Foundation in 2008. Recently a character portrait by Tony was exhibited in a major northern art gallery.

In 1992 he was commissioned by the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford­ to paint a portrait of the retiring Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Oxford. Following the presentation, the portrait was exhibited at a reception at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

The English Watercolours Internet site at www. english-watercolours.com was launched in 2000 exhibiting the work of the resident artist Tony Cowlishaw which includes rural landscape, coastal and marine paintings. Visitors to the site have the opportunity to view a catalogue of all work available for sale, which represent excellent value and to purchase selected paintings using an online secure encrypted credit card payment through a designated internet bank. The site also includes an illustrated history of English watercolour painting and details of the Workshops and Demonstrations Tony does for Art Clubs and Societies throughout the country.