When did you start your creative practice and why?
I began my personal work in 1988. I had completed my training and was doing some design and illustration work for my uncle’s company part time. My baby daughter and I were in the garden when I started to make some very loose watercolours of the Herefordshire landscape (over the fence). A local gallery exhibited them and it took off from there.
What themes or ideas do you find yourself returning to most often?
Themes for my work arise from the Derbyshire Dales and Peaks but also from other locations where I have lived and worked within the UK. I have moved around quite a lot so feel I have many homes.
What is your creative process from idea to finished piece is it always the same?
My paintings are figurative and when executed in acrylic or mixed media often quite tactile, and expressive, with a heightened colour palette. Although the subject matter is recognisable I sometimes enjoy interpreting the locations alternative ways. I may manipulate a composition in order to produce the desired aesthetic balance or to heighten drama.
At the moment I am painting trees as they change throughout the seasons, but I have many ideas for forthcoming landscapes and I want to return to painting the sea, ever changing with the weather and at different times of year. A receding road or lane never loses its charm for me.
Is there a particular piece of yours that feels especially meaningful? Why?
The most meaningful piece I have painted hangs on my sitting room wall. It depicts the brook behind the house where I grew up. In the water are two small branches floating downstream. Its title is “Poohsticks!”. I painted it for my mum who passed away at the beginning of the pandemic: it was our favourite place.
Do you ever have creative blocks, how do you keep motivated?
I haven’t experienced many creative blocks although sometimes I can become drained if I have to produce lots of work in a short time frame. However I enjoy reading poetry and this can spark ideas or help with a title. I especially love Gillian Clarke and Sylvia Plath.
If you could give the younger you advice what would it be?
If your work could evoke one feeling or reaction in viewers, what would it be?
When I sell a painting I rarely know who has bought it or what attracted them to it. But when I am pleased with a piece I’ve made I feel a connection, a warmth inside. I would love a buyer to feel the same way, to know that it holds the same meaning for them too.
What is your website and how do we find you on social media?
