Only two years after he had first exhibited at the Society of Artists of Great Britain, where he was instructed by Henry Gilder, a protégé of Thomas Sandby, Payne obtained a post as a draughtsman for the Board of Ordnance at the Tower of London aged only eighteen. Although he was stylistically close to Thomas and Paul Sandby, Payne invented a number of devices which he used throughout his career, most notably using grey pigment for his foreground - still known as Payne's Grey. Payne joined the Old Water-Colour Society in 1809.
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