ARTIST – RICHARD GREEN
I now live in Medway, Kent, UK, but my formative years were spent to the south of London, between Morden and Sutton, and I would often cycle to one of the footbridges at the south-west end of Wimbledon Station and enjoy the steam hauled main line trains thundering underneath me. I also visited the Talyllyn and Ffestiniog railways while on holiday with my parents in the early sixties.
My real interest in railways dates from a visit to the Bluebell Railway, Sussex, in 1974 and I decided wanted to learn a lot more. This led me to visit Camden library, which was near my work place, and read my way through their stock of books on steam locomotives and railway history. At the same time I became a member of the Bluebell Railway Preservation Society and visited other steam railways around the country.
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| An early illustration – GWR 4054 Princess Charlotte. |
Being (what was then called) a commercial artist working in advertising I started producing drawings of steam locomotives during the late seventies. To start with they were ink line drawings with flat colour added, but later more detail was added and an airbrush employed to make them three-dimensional. After a break I came back to illustrating locomotives – this time using the technology I was now using in my everyday work which has enabled the production of the highly detailed artworks you see today.
One of my earlier illustration of the Bluebell Railway's locomotive Stepney was printed and sold to benefit the railway; copies are still on sale in the shop at Sheffield Park Station. I have also produced various graphics for the society.
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| 34059 Sir Archibald Sinclair's nameplate crest. | Plaque used when 21C123 is renamed O.V.S. Bulleid. |
My involvement with the Bluebell led to being asked to produce the artwork for Battle of Britain Class, No.34059 Sir Archibald Sinclair's enamelled plaques. Although I had one of the originals as a guide this was damaged so I needed to do some research to produced the new artwork. Later I produced the plaques fitted to 21C123 Blackmoor Vale when it is renamed OVS Bulleid to honour the locomotive's designer. I also look after the Bulleid Society's web site.
In 2004 John Harvey asked me to produced the black and white line drawings for his book on the Bulleid Merchant Navy Pacifics – published by Ian Allan. John obtained a lot of engineering drawings from the National Railway Museum and working from them I was able to produce accurate scale drawings. These cover most of the locomotive and tender variations of this complex class.
Recently I redesigned Southern Locomotives Limited's web site, which was done free of charge. I have also produced illustrations of No.34053 Sir Keith Park and No.34072 257 Squadron for them. At present these are exclusively for Southern Locomotives Ltd use.
I have also worked with a couple of O gauge model manufactures, supplying drawings and graphics.