New Work: consistent style and my love of plants..

New Work: consistent style and my love of plants..

I’m very excited about my new work – this line probably starts a lot of artist’s blog posts – but I am actually properly excited: I’m excited because I can’t wait to get back into the studio to paint some more!  It’s good news all round: I’ve found a medium that suits my style, I’ve found a style that suits my character, and I can run and run with this subject: plants.  I’ve always been interested in plants and nature, and I’m very pleased that I had the opportunity to make it my career for a decade (working with Garden Organic and the National Trust in the UK as well as private clients) – this taught me to recognise and categorise, and appreciate, plants, and of course how to best care for them..

The technique: I’ve been experimenting for a year really, since I finished my studio, and the “CREATE” course at NCAT, and the four years of painting with oils immediately before that, not to mention the rest of my lifetime.. – anyway, this isn’t supposed to be an online “dear diary”, but I am just so happy to find that I can return to my watercolour technique, but using more robust materials – that I don’t have to be so precious with!  Acrylic Inks are lightfast, permanent, and waterproof.  The way I can use them suits the way I draw, focusing on smooth linear direct drawing, and the clear colours suit how I like to colour things, kind of super-real, directly observed from life but making the 3d into more of a graphic 2d.

And I’m also excited that this technique will lend itself to anything that I can draw (see for example my instagram feed).

My current paintings are of course all available to buy, currently at great low prices, once they are gone I will be selling prints of them, and, more paintings – as soon as I can get back into that studio!

New website and nostalgia

New website and nostalgia

Oh my, I am so excited that I am finally finishing off this website!  It’s third in line of things I’m building to enable my ART PRACTICE:

  1. Spring 2017: Garden Shed (to empty future studio into) Check.
  2. Autumn 2017: Studio (refurbished that) Check.
  3. Autumn 2018: Website. Check.

And in-between I’ve been making lovely art. Check.  So, today, as I launch my website quietly in-case-it-doesn’t-work-perfectly-yet.. I’m celebrating by including a little gallery of some works which were on my previous site, which are now making their own way in the world and may never be seen by me again… Which is the whole point – hooray:

My Creative Haven

My Creative Haven

Photo of My Studio in My Garden

My Studio in My Garden

My first studio! I’m so grateful to have a dedicated studio now! So far in my life I’ve fitted my art in, wherever, in my home, any corner.  Now we’ve insulated, lined, painted, cleaned, and I have a room of my own!  It’s at the end of our garden amongst mature eucalypts, with our chickens close by for light entertainment – they also make good life drawing models, as long as I draw super-fast.

My studio, and my home, is on the edge of the beautiful Yarra Valley, which is on the edge of Melbourne, so we’re surrounded by greenery – which I find I need – but also plenty of Arts and Culture.  And at last I can create, uninterrupted, for hours at a time.  This has been my aim for so long!

I also built the shed on the right from scratch – I’m pretty proud of that too.

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