Tovey’s Art is a small personal endeavour of David Tovey following in the steps of several artistic generations of his family. David’s love of process inspires him to be proficient in all activities from start to the finish of the works shown, he wishes nothing but the best for those who enjoy his work.
David uses pine stretchers and the best berge primed linen supplied by The French Art Shop Wellington for his oil painting. This ensures the finished product is light, straight and long lasting. Even the biggest work is not too much of a mission to hang. Current work can be qualified by his use of a very limited four colour plus white palette giving a similar look and feel across the entire piece. David uses Sennelier Extra-Fine oils.
David’s egg tempera work is produced on thin MDF board primed both sides attached to a cedar rectangular backing to ensure the MDF remains straight. As a result these works are heavier than equivalent sized oil paintings. Using egg tempera requires the artist to create their own “paint” from raw pigment, tempered with egg yolk rather than oil. While this process is tedious, the end result can be significantly different than oils with softer colours which can have a more translucent feel about them.
Pen and ink – mainly using the technique of Pointillism – features as a medium for David to break from the long hours required of oils and egg tempera. These require considerably shorter production time, are created on the very best heatset water colour paper and commercially mounted, framed with glass.
Most of his critical art supplies are sourced locally from The Drawing Room in Christchurch or the French Art Shop in Wellington. Mounting and framing are done by Artworks 2014 in Christchurch.