A DALE artist’s self published book which follows in the footsteps of Arthur Wainwright has won a second national award.
Andy Beck’s The Wainwrights In Colour took the book of the year honour in this year’s BBC Countryfile Magazine awards.
The book, which was published in May last year, features 1,509 paintings of scenes which feature in Alfred Wainwright’s famous pictorial guides. It previously won Outdoors Magazine’s book of the year award in December last year.
Fergus Collins, who judged the Book for BBC Countryfile Magazine, said: “Inspired by the work of Alfred Wainwright, artist Andy Beck’s The Wainwrights in Colour is a vibrant collection of watercolour sketches depicting every illustration drawn by AW in his pictorial guides to the Lakeland Fells.”
He added that it had been a runaway winner in the category.
Mr Beck learned of the award on Thursday, March 15, when he received an email from a customer saying simply “second award – well done” .
The artist said: “I was gobsmacked. The first thing I did was ring my wife – she was at work – and I was really emotional.
“I am absolutely chuffed, who wouldn’t be? You think it is nice to be nominated and then to be in the top five, but I never thought I would win.”
Significantly the book was entirely self-published and was up against titles which have the backing of large publishers. Only 5,000 copies of Mr Beck’s book have been published. Ironically, his idea for the book was rejected in 2009 by Francis Lincoln who publish the Wainwright guides.
Mr Beck said: “Authors are rejected hundreds of times before they have success. I thought I’ve been turned down once. I now think they have done me a favour by forcing me to do it all myself.”
Now Mr Beck is turning his sights on Teesdale for his latest project in which he explores the landscape and life of the region.
He said: “These is a huge amount of interesting things in such a small area. There are loads of quirky places.”
People interested in The Wainwrights In Colour can visit andybeckimages.co.uk.
