Artist Blogs

I have enjoyed making marks on paper since discovering my mother’s notebook and pencil, aged 4. Like most children, I drew a little house.

One of my real passions is pastel painting & I love sharing the knowledge that I have gained over 20 years or so of working with them.

My pastel journey, started in December 2015 when my sister bought me a Christmas present of 6 pastel pencils. I had no idea what they were as I’d only ever used graphite pencil. I was afraid of colour from many failed attempts with paint!

Having drawn and painted all my life as a hobby from a very young age, and having been primarily a self-taught watercolourist, I thought I’d explored most art mediums available up until about nine or ten years ago.

There again I have never used any art media in the conventional way. I am a mixed media artist and I specialise in landscapes, the wild spaces and places in between the iconic scenes and views of Scotland are my thing and the wilder the better.

Iceland is a unique landscape with active volcanoes and icebergs gives its nickname “the land of fire and ice”. There are lots of inspiration for creative people, everywhere you look there is a scene waiting to be painted.

Like all good adventures it started as a dare. I had just started working in the art shop and I discovered the display of Unison pastels. They’re by the till in an antique wooden unit of thin drawers with a glass display on top.

The enriching, nearly endless range of colour that pastels offer us is one of my favourite things about the medium. How lucky we are, to have all the world’s palette at — and, after a good day at the easel, all over — our fingertips!

For the past three months I have been immersed in an exciting project – to reimagine objects and subjects from Richmond Borough Art Collection culminating in a group exhibition at Orleans House Gallery in Twickenham.