Doing what comes naturally - Rodger McPhail, wildlife artist (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Doing what comes naturally - Rodger McPhail, wildlife artist

11:05am Thursday 23rd January 2003 in News By Karen Barden

His wildlife paintings are breathtakingly beautiful, gracing royal palaces, castles and country houses.

Rodger McPhail's grouse is splashed across the bottle of the famous whisky namesake and since the age of 19 when he got a double-page spread in the Shooting Times the Arkholme artist has become the country's leading wildlife and sporting painting specialist.

Ironically, he is an ardent shot, stalker and fisherman, viewing most of his exquisite subjects as food.

"I have always been obsessed with animals and creatures," he explains. "Obsessed, but never sentimental. I always wanted to catch and shoot them.

"Animals, to me, are a crop. Only in recent years have we had the animal hospital attitude of looking on them as little people.

"I love them dearly, as all sportsmen love their quarry."

In the book, Rodger McPhail, author Ian Alcock talks of how the Queen commissioned him to knock up a couple of watercolours of a woodcock and partridge to give to the King of Spain - but the painter cannot comment.

"Doesn't do to talk about such things," he countered wisely. After all, the quiet genius with a wicked wit knows which side his bread is buttered on.

He hasn't met the monarch personally, but has encountered "most of the others". Prince Charles, admits Rodger, has "a few" of his pieces at Highgrove.

Three decades of acclaim and good living from the success of his strokes are brushed aside. Rodger prefers to talk stage sets.

We are not talking West End here, although the country's best theatres could benefit from his amazing skill. No, this is Hornby Village Institute and its resident band of Gilbert and Sullivan am-dramers, with whom Rodger has found great affinity.

He says his regular clinching of the lead part has nothing to do with a "very forgettable baritone sort-of voice", as he knows nothing much about music. Hornby Occasionals recognise finely-honed talent when they see it and in Rodger they have a truly spectacular scenery service.

He produces a miniature puppet of himself, made for Yeoman of the Guard, and excitedly talks of an out-of-the-blue phone call from professional Gilbert and Sullivan company D'Oyle Carte, about his "fantastic performance" in The Mikado.

"I was pointing out that I did actually have a proper day job, as an artist, and couldn't possibly consider joining them, when suddenly April 1 was mentioned."

The wind-up had come courtesy of his wife's cousin. The purveyor of fine art, who also makes an honest buck with cartoons and wacky drawings, is hot on humour.

Rodger grew up on the outskirts of Coventry. He says his was the last generation to be able to wander alone into a countryside that consumed him.

As a boy, he had a pet kestrel, which he fed with the sparrows he shot with an airgun or blow-pipe, a tame magpie, and ferrets. All creatures, dead or alive, were sketched, or painted.

"I don't like animals or birds kept in cages. Killing them for food is one thing, caging them is another."

Rodger did graphics at art college in Liverpool. It was the 70s, not a hip-happening time for a traditional illustrator.

"I wanted to make a living in the art world and would have been prepared to do anything. That is still the case. If it pays, I'll do it."

He says he has been lucky, very lucky.

"If you have talent, you will get there, eventually."

Rodger's was recognised early. The Shooting Times editor told him as a teenager, he was going to have a very happy life.

Every couple of years, his work is displayed in a prestigious exhibition at the Tryon Gallery, in London. In the first day, 90 per cent of around 140 pictures are sold. Price tags are up to £20,000.

"I've done very well out of it. Even in the early days, I always earned a little more than I needed," he says.

"In fact, few painters have starved in the garrets, or have had to wait until death for recognition. If you are any good you will get recognised."

There are few McPhail originals in the smart family home and its detached studio, converted from a double garage, only what Rodger describes as obscure things like llamas or snakes or marabou storks. The ones that haven't sold.

His portraits are incredible feats of mastery and the hardest of his constant commissions.

"Pheasants never complain about lines," he quips. "In capturing a person there is no room for error and individuals are highly critical. One American lady, 60-something and very smart, managed to carve off about 20 years by the time I'd finished with her modifications. The original though, was the better portrait."

His two young sons have romped around his studio unhindered and when the younger little darling took a screwdriver to an almost complete painting, dad took this in his stride, declaring it wasn't one of the better ones.

"They both draw nicely, but I wouldn't encourage them to do the same. They'd be 30 years behind and people would inevitably compare."

Most of his oil and watercolours are completed in around a week. Rodger coyly admits to using a hairdryer for "speeding things up."

The opportunities for travel have been regular and tantalising - from grouse shoots in Scotland to gun wielding in darkest Africa.

"There is something about sitting around a night fire with professional hunters in Africa, hearing stories of charging buffalos and the Mau Mau uprising."

He says he, too, gunned down a buffalo which had been terrorising inhabitants of a ranch.

Rodger has been appearing with his mate David Battersby, from Hornby Castle, in two-man shows, a sort of Flanders/Swann, Stilgoe/Skellern double act and says the experience is a happy diversion from the easel.

There is no let-up from the daily routine of office-hour operations. The mortgage still has to be paid off, he quips.

Work on the autumn London exhibition is under way and there is an order in for bottle labels.

"I'm not a tortured soul who can't bear to part with his work. I can't wait to get the cheque!"

"I always thought that one lifetime was not enough to paint all the things I need to paint," he explains, settling back into another day's work.