Born in Sussex, I spent much of my childhood in the beautiful countryside.

 

I had an early interest in art and started painting as a self-taught watercolour artist. I was not one for sketching before painting, I enjoyed the process of using large brushes, paint and water to produce large, colourful, free flowing watercolours.  I think this was the influence of a Chinese Painting course that gave me the confidence to use just brush work to create paintings.

 

I became successful firstly by selling through various art societies, then working largely on commissions. While my children were young and at school I expanded my knowledge of art during a two year art and art history course, this exposed me to new challenges including the use of pencils and charcoals. With new found confidence I had my first solo art exhibition and began conducting various art demonstrations and an occupational art therapy course.

 

Today I love to be more experimental with my paintings, with all the wonderful new painting materials on the market one can hardly resist playing with them. Of course I still love the watercolour process but enjoy new techniques and mixed media painting too.

 

Capturing a scene, not as a photographic study but to represent the feeling, the light and the atmosphere through painting can be inspirational.

 

There is nothing like heading off with my sketch book and painting on location; one of my favourite places to visit is Bosham and indeed the first painting I ever sold was of an old boat looking across the yacht basin and today there are just a few bits of wood left of that old boat on the shoreline!

 

Holiday sketching is just wonderful, from the beautiful South Downs, I now frequently visit my son in Dubai and it so much fun capturing all the amazing opportunities to paint such varied landscapes from the vibrant townscapes to the desert.

 

The beauty of art is that you are always looking at subjects more closely, you examine how the shadows and light fall, how a leaf curls, how a boat sits in the water and wherever you look there is always a subject you wish to paint.