Crofton artist\u2019s work selected to hang in King\u2019s Royal Collection<\/p>\n
Published 12:14 pm Monday, June 1, 2026<\/p>\n
On an oceanfront road in Crofton, sits a small art studio, but inside you won\u2019t see those ocean views. The curtains stay drawn to limit the light and reflection so that Harold Allanson can sit and paint. Watercolour is his medium, and this room is proof he\u2019s spent a lifetime learning his craft.<\/p>\n
One of Allanson\u2019s paintings was recently selected, among 24 others, to be donated to the Royal Collection Trust of King Charles III, where it will be displayed at Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour (CSPWC) have been working on this initiative for decades, gradually contributing 100 contemporary Canadian watercolours to the Royal Collection in alignment with its 100th anniversary. The first two installments were donated in 1985 and 2000, with the final 25 paintings being sent off earlier this year.<\/p>\n
In December, Allanson travelled to Toronto to take part in the CSPWC\u2019s 100th anniversary gala dinner and join the other selected artists in a moment of collective recognition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have happened, but it doesn\u2019t set my world on fire,\u201d he says with a laugh. For him, the real reward is simpler \u2014 time spent with other painters doing similar work.<\/p>\n
Allanson was drawn to drawing and painting from an early age. Diagnosed with dyslexia, school \u201cdidn\u2019t go too well,\u201d and he eventually dropped out of high school. A few years later, he found his way into art school in Chicago, where things began to click. His success in art school was cut short due to a lack of funds and a letter from Uncle Sam.<\/p>\n
He left art school and fell back into trucking \u2014 a job that gave him a constantly shifting view of the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m glad I spent my life doing what I did,\u201d he says. \u201cBecause it gave me all those life experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those miles still show up in his work. Behind his desk sits a painting of him and three friends from his trucking days. The Crofton-based painter draws heavily from lived experience, often painting places and people he knows well. Most of his pieces begin with photographs he\u2019s taken himself \u2014 snapshots of working life, coastlines and cowboys.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the camera goes out the door, in my pocket, in a sense I\u2019m working all the time,\u201d he says while scrolling through images on his computer. Many are variations of the same rocky beach in Ucluelet \u2014 light shifting slightly between each frame, almost like he\u2019s trying to catch the same moment from every angle.<\/p>\n
These days, Allanson says he doesn\u2019t work with quite the same intensity he once did.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy attention span isn\u2019t what it used to be,\u201d he admits with a small laugh. \u201cAt this stage in my life, I can\u2019t just sit here and paint all the time \u2014 you have to go for your doctor\u2019s appointments,\u201d he adds, laughing again.<\/p>\n
Soon, some of his work will hang in the royal collection but back in Crofton, the studio stays quiet, the curtains drawn and the work continues. He paints when he can, teaches workshops for local artists, and spends much of his time with his wife and fellow painter, Merrily, and Jenny, his dog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crofton artist\u2019s work selected to hang in King\u2019s Royal Collection Published 12:14 pm Monday, June 1, 2026 On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674,36245],"class_list":["post-708503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey","tag-vancouver-island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}