History of Ric’s Art Studio

It is now nearly 13 years since I moved into the cottage built by the eccentric painter Dan Sherrin (1869-1940), a small summer residency on the seafront in a secluded beach-view garden. In February 2025 the local writer CJ Stone kindly wrote a favourable article about this in his local online publication Whitstable Views. To read it got to the link below:

The sky below our feet – Whitstable Views

Dan Sherrin spent the majority of his life in this cottage, becoming a successful artist and a local celebrity. Once commissioned by King George V to paint the royal Sandringham residence — the picture still resides in Buckingham Palace — he is now represented in numerous public collections including the Royal Collection Trust and the Imperial War Museum. 

Local records show that this was the artist’s original studio from which he painted his work The Wreck at Seasalter among others and that had he lived in the large house up the hill called Westbank, next door to the Rose in Bloom pub in Joy Lane. 

Dan was such a remarkable character, a noted self-publicist and practical joker of the most humorous kind, that he was eventually dubbed the Mayor of Seasalter. His love of beer was legendary and he dressed in a range of creative outfits, most noteworthy his outrageous chequered plus-fours.

It is reported that he would rise at 4am to complete a painting before breakfast. His antics were reported regularly by the press, including building an aeroplane in his garden. When coming back from London on the train, he would notoriously stop the train opposite the house, which backed onto the tracks, by pulling the communication cord to avoid having to walk back from the station, despite the inevitable fine. He commissioned the construction of his own coffin, and when workers were digging the trench for the gas main on Joy Lane, one lunchtime, when they had gone for their break, he lowered the coffin into the trench and laid down in it! 

Dan Sherrin also set up the Seasalter fire brigade — but sarcastically insisted that you had to book it a year in advance. It is no surprise that his wild personality led to numerous court appearances. His sense of humour was also employed by the military in WWI when he designed a darkly comical advert to be used in national newspapers to encourage young men to enlist and fight on the front line by offering holidays in France with free board and food. An elderly neighbour who lived nearby, told Ric that he recalls seeing Winston Churchill plus entourage on the little foot bridge on Preston Parade viewing the newly installed gun battery, which was right in front of the house in about 1943.

Ric first felt inspired to explore the unique light of the north Kent coast around Thanet — one of his early inspirations was the art of the romantic painter JMW Turner (1775-1851) because of his links to Margate and Birchington. Ric loves Whitstable’s coastline as it is predominantly shallow mud flats, which from a painter’s point of view are a visual feast — even in poor weather they provide as much sky below your feet as above. 

He says about it: “Since this quirky cottage was purpose-built for him, it provided a 180-degree sea view: the perfect setting to capture stunning sunsets and dramatic beach scenes, as well as opportunities to study luminous and expressive clouds, which is my current preoccupation. I have set up my studio at the front of the house, overlooking the sea. This has changed my working practice profoundly as I now have a wealth of natural beauty in front of me and I am less dependent on notes and colour sketches.”

“I can now work directly on canvas while engaging with my subject and depict various sea states and light events that may have otherwise evaded me. It has become possible to study storms in greater detail and track showers and their influence on the sea in some degree of comfort. These paintings are therefore composed in my imagination based on observed realities. They are true to my inner eye. Unfortunately, despite the house’s prominence and history, time and gravity have taken their toll, leaving every floor uneven, so, when I first moved in, the horizon appeared to lean when looking out from the window! “

“The light out there is what pulls me in. Today, it’s clear and sharp —cool blues cut through silvery greys, and the sun peeks through drifting clouds now and then. The sea catches the light, fracturing it into shifting patterns that change by the minute. It is never the same twice, and that’s why I stay engaged. The light, the weather, the sea — they’re all part of the work, setting a tone I have to respond to.”

“Before I start, I lay out my materials carefully. Oil is my medium of choice — thick, tactile, slow to dry, and full of possibility. I often make my own canvases, stretching and priming the linen by hand. That’s part of the process for me — it connects me physically to what I’m about to create. My palette is modest but precise: cobalt blue, burnt sienna, titanium white, and earth tones. These are the colours I’ll use to capture the landscape outside and the details I want to hold onto.”

“I arrange my brushes by size and shape — flats, filberts, rounds — ready to bring texture and form to the canvas. My palette knife lies nearby, worn smooth from years of mixing and scraping. A folded rag waits for the moments when I need to clean or correct. I don’t rush. I focus slowly and carefully on each detail — the rough surface of a rock, the irregular shapes of pebbles, the soft gradients of the clouds drifting overhead, even the smallest speck of light dancing on the water. Each one demands attention. I absorb it all and translate it, patiently, into paint. There are moments when I step back and doubt creeps in—has the painting captured what I saw, what I felt? But then something shifts. A colour balances, a shape resolves, and suddenly the canvas breathes. That quiet “click” when the work begins to feel right — it’s a rare, sharp joy that makes the cold, the coffee, the hours’ worth it.”.

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