Ifor Pritchard was an artist and former art teacher.

His paintings drew on his childhood in the North Wales village of Carmel

Carmel, Gwynedd

Carmel is a small village near Y Fron in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. The village is built up mainly of Victorian homes, with a more modern area. The village has its own school, Carmel school and still has managed to keep a couple of shops, one a general store , which is run by Doris Jones, the...

, Gwynedd

Gwynedd

Gwynedd is a county in north-west Wales, named after the old Kingdom of Gwynedd. Although the second biggest in terms of geographical area, it is also one of the most sparsely populated...

 and his memories of the local slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

 quarries

Quarries

Quarries - The "Royal Quarries" — not found in Scripture — is the namegiven to the vast caverns stretching far underneath the northern hill, Bezetha, on which Jerusalem is built. Out of these mammoth caverns stones, a hard limestone, have been quarried in ancient times for the buildings in the...

.

Working with oil

Oil paint

Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the...

 and using an impasto

Impasto

In English, the borrowed Italian word impasto most commonly refers to a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface very thickly, usually thickly enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas...

 technique, he built up the surface of his canvases with thick blocks of solid colour, creating bold and dynamic portraits of remembered and imagined figures of the slate industry. He predominantly utilised a limited palette with a preference for blues, greys and purples, although exceptions include the quarrymen's brass band, their outfits rendered in bright reds and vibrant oranges.

Pritchard died aged 70 in Porthmadog

Porthmadog

Porthmadog , known locally as "Port", and historically rendered into English as Portmadoc, is a small coastal town and community in the Eifionydd area of Gwynedd, in Wales. Prior to the Local Government Act 1972 it was in the administrative county of Caernarfonshire. The town lies east of...

following a short illness.