PAINTING most days for one to three hours at a time, Graham Hadlow predominantly paints realistic landscapes, favouring coastal scenes in between tides.
Light on land, the atmospherics of skies, sunsets and clouds, hazes of distance, water and reflections, snow and reflected light are all rendered simply, apparently easily, gently, in muted colour - the tonal values exactly representing the light source, shapes and shadows of his chosen scene.
This all takes place in his small studio in St. Florence, meticulously arranged for ease of access to all painting and drawing media, indexed photographs, ready stretched paper, the paraphernalia of mounting and framing and his reference books.
Yorkshire-born, the young Graham Hadlow attended school in Lincolnshire steel town of Scunthorpe and lived in Crowle, a large village surrounded by flat, arable land.
Home activities with his parents and sister included drawing from a very early age, Graham learning from his father, 'a very talented oil painter, especially of portraits', tackling still lifes of household objects and plants.
Winning a competition at age 12, Graham's entries were shown on Adrian Hill's Sketch Club TV programme.
Later, he took A Level art and continued his studies at Loughborough College of Education on the Creative Design course.
Ceramics became his preferred subject, including wheel throwing, handbuilding and clay sculpture. Graham sold his ceramics coursework, stoneware for domestic use, to pay off his student overdraft.
The reality of full-time employment loomed and the adverts in the Times Educational Supplement offered one teaching post in Shrewsbury and another in Tenby.
He joined the staff of Greenhill School, Tenby, in 1970 as pottery teacher in the art department headed by 'Tot' Thomas.
At that time the new art wing had not been built, so Graham had the opportunity of setting-up the pottery room as he wanted it.
The pottery room with kiln, one of three new art rooms, became his domain for the next 28 years. In 1986, he became head of department.
Outside school, he played football for the New Hedges team from 1971 and then took up fishing in 1973.
In 1976, Graham married Joy, who also taught at Greenhill School, and the pair moved to the village of St. Florence.
He continued to fish, both from the beach and on the Cleddau, and made his own flies, subsequently winning national fly-dressing competitions.
On their frequent outings throughout Pembrokeshire, Graham's obvious delight in the varied landscapes led Joy to encourage him to rekindle his early artistic interest.
He set-up a studio in his home and started painting landscapes.
Being a member of Tenby Arts Club enabled Graham to exhibit for the first time. Further exhibitions followed at Pembroke Arts Club, Haverfordwest and Pembroke Dock libraries, the Torch Theatre, Dockside Gallery, and further afield in Swansea and Bourton-on-the-Water.
Thoughts of leaving teaching to paint professionally started creeping in, and in 1998 he left Greenhill having inspired thousands of Pembrokeshire young people there.
Now Graham teaches at art clubs and centres and other public venues and his pupils are adult learners, who travel across South Wales to watch his demonstrations. He has become an enormous influence on many aspiring painters in the area.
Graham Hadlow exudes genial satisfaction. "It is an agreeable way of life. I can decide on the day what I want to do with it" - and often what he does decide to do with it is to produce paintings for sale at prices most people can afford and to share his considerable skills in a generous and gentle teaching style.
An exhibition of Graham's latest paintings opens tonight (Friday), when Observer readers are invited to meet him over a glass of wine from 6 to 9 pm at Art Matters, South Parade, Tenby.
The exhibition continues until Saturday, January 4, and is open Monday to Saturday (except only Christmas Day) from 10 am to 5 pm.
Watercolour workshops with Graham continue in February as part of an ongoing programme of workshops at Art Matters.