Five years ago artist Malcolm Teasdale depicted traditional landscapes and still lifes. But by turning to the industry of his North-East youth, he has found a new audience. He talks to Lindsay Jennings.

IT is hard to believe that the industrial North-East did not feature in Malcolm Teasdale's artwork any earlier. Malcolm's forefathers were lead miners working the seams on bleak Alston Moor in Cumbria and successive generations coal mined in Tynedale and close to Newcastle.

Born in Elswick, near Newcastle, Malcolm, now 62, was brought up in the North-East. His parents had a bakery shop and, working hard, they sent their son to a private school in Gosforth and on to boarding school.

Excelling in sport, he gained his teaching degree and went on to teach PE in schools in the North-East. But always, he had a love of painting, which he saw very much as a hobby.

"I can remember doing commissions for people when I was at Bede's College and getting £200 for a big oil painting," he recalls.

"I was self taught. When I took my A-levels I didn't do particularly well at art. But later on I really got into it."

Malcolm, who now lives in Morpeth, started out depicting a mixture of landscapes, seascapes and still lifes. He exhibited his work in local galleries and then was asked to take part in a BBC television programme called A Glimpse of the Great North, presented by Wendy Gibson.

'I would do traditional scenes - Bamburgh Castle, or Lindisfarne, except I'd make the sky a different colour," he says.

"Being creative, I used to write poetry, then five or six years ago I decided to write poetry about my childhood memories. I wrote one called The Night Before Christmas and someone said 'why don't you do a painting depicting that?' Now I work from titles. I've got hundreds of them. I just make them up. Then before I do any painting I do a 6x4 print. I've got books galore of little drawings."

And Malcolm has not looked back. His paintings have soared in popularity and he now sells prints across the UK and America and regularly exhibits at galleries across the country.

"It's really given me the incentive to carry on and do more," he says. "The quality of work has improved as well because I'm doing it for a wider audience."

Malcolm works in gouache - opaque watercolours - and creates his work like an oil painter, daubing on layers and building from dark colours through to light.

The scenes he creates are wonderfully nostalgic, depicting Northern life through the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Winter Wonderland shows a typical North-East street, filled with terraced houses covered in snow. The kids are wrapped up warm, playing in the street and pulling their brothers and sisters on home-made sleighs.

Bucket and Spade is another familiar scene, a typical Northern seaside picture complete with dad in his braces and white handkerchief. Line 'Em Up Boys shows the miners in flat caps and braces having a sing-song around the piano, beers in hand.

His other work takes in sporting scenes - at the races or moments before the Newcastle United game kicks off - or simply a bus, in the darkness pulling up at a bus stop, letting on several dark clothed figures, entitled The Last Bus Home.

The focus of his new exhibition at the NewcastleGateshead Arts Fair - the first event of its kind in the North-East and, it is hoped, to become an annual affair - in May will be Haway the Lads. As an avid Magpies fan it is hardly surprising that football has featured in his latest work. It includes images of supporters outside St James' Park and youngsters in their black and white scarves playing around terraced streets entitled Magpies in the Making.

Since he switched to the scenes of his youth, Malcolm has given up teaching and now paints full time, which is something he's always wanted to do. His wife, Ros, is a teacher and the couple have two children, Philippa, 29, who's training to be a teacher, and Richard, 27, who is an artist.

"The subjects reflect memories of when I was a child," he says. "It's almost a story of my life. I try to inject activity into each piece, but I also enjoy the research. Everything I do is authentic. If I do a painting of a bus from the 1950s I don't want it looking like something from the 1980s or 90s. I contact people and talk to them and I also get ideas from old newspaper cuttings.

"It's taken 30 or 40 years to get where I am now, but I'm so glad I'm here."

The NewcastleGateshead Art Fair takes place from May 10-13 on Gateshead Quays, next to the Sage, with a wide range of exhibitions. For more information log onto www.ngartfair.com.