Biography
My drawing and painting started at a Saturday Morning Art Club at the local library when I was about 9 years old. That introduction kindled an interest that stayed with me even though I followed along engineering career both as a civilian an in the Army. I still doodled occasionally in pen or pencil, and my sketching proved very useful throughout my career; but I had never painted.

In 1994 I moved to a Consultancy Team in Norfolk and while there I sought a local tutor to teach me how to use watercolour and thats when it really started. I left the Army in 1997 and settled in Fincham, Norfolk. Civil Service Energy Management followed and that finally convinced me - there just had to be better things in life!

My lovely wife Sarah gave me total support, so I resigned and took part-time agency work to use my free time to concentrate on watercolours. After some exhibition success and with an invitation to teach watercolours I turned professional in 2001. My income dropped drastically, I have never looked back, and I have never been so happy in my life.

Local, regional and festival exhibitions; Open Studios, painting demonstrations, commissions, outdoor groups; Limited Edition prints, my own range of Greeting Cards through Norfolk; and my own Watercolour Courses: -

Then we decided to stop it all for a move to Cornwall in 2005 and I now have a studio at my home in Luxulyan. An invitation to join an exhibition in Fowey in September 2008 was quickly followed by the opportunity to open the "Derek Preece Gallery" in Mevagissey.

Mixed Exhibitions:
Holkham. Norfolk. - 2001/02
Picturecraft, Holt. Norfolk. - 2001/02
Kelling Reading Rooms. Norfolk. - 2003
Shelton Festival, Norwich. Norfolk. - 2004
Fowey. Cornwall. - 2008

Solo Exhibitions:
Brancaster, Norfolk. - 2001/02
"Derek Preece Gallery". Mevagissey, Cornwall. - 2008/2011