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Current Work
Portraits
During the Covid years, I returned to portraits something I had abandoned decades ago much preferring animals, to be honest.
I was rusty at first then I challenged myself to complete 50 portraits during the lockdowns. It took me just over a year to complete the task and now I enjoy portraits as a great drawing exercise.
I often draw portrait ‘quickies’ with the Liverpool Sketching Club which kept me motivated during the lockdowns thanks to online sessions the majority of these portraits are from those sessions.
My preferred materials are drawing pens and watercolour pencils for these sketches and most took less than 45
Turquoise
I have a playful side often leading to random and amusing arty diversions. These diversions sometimes last a day and occasionally develop into larger obsessions.
Like all artists, I cannot walk past an art shop without topping up my collection of art materials and this project started with a sale of only turquoise acrylic paint in Liverpool. I bought several tubes and quickly realised I had been drawn to all things turquoise throughout my life.
I am building up a turquoise body of work from paintings to collages. I resisted exploring the history of turquoise (which is difficult to do as I’m a historian too). For me, the concepts of no waste, underdogs, a simple colour base rule and no other boundaries encapsulate so much of my creative process.
I’m hoping this body of work builds to a turquoise exhibition. Some of these works occasionally are for sale.
It’s turquoise, it has to use turquoise, it is turquoise.
Heatwave
In essence, I am a mixed-media artist. My work is a glimpse into a scattered mind, my approach to art depends on mood, weather, domestics, what music or poetry I’ve listened to recently or what plant or insect I’ve encountered on a walk.
The heatwave works are a prime example. It was the hottest day of the year (a moving target these days) and as I tried to shade myself, my pooches and my art table in the middle of a camping field having listened to yet more climate change doom and gloom on the news the night before I changed palettes to hot, hot, hot.
The sky and air burned my vision and green hedgerows turned to burning colours. I sketchbooked initially, I wrote poetry alongside and burning suns developed into fiery sunsets later developed in the studio.
I don’t see these as finished works yet and I expect more to happen in the heat. My heatwave poems have been performed at open mic events in Birkenhead and local reading groups. Some of the paintings were exhibited at the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton in 2022.
Collages
My processes are a little chaotic and my studio is crammed with works in progress and the clutter of found objects including potential items I plan to transform.
I track ideas in notebooks, maintain a ginormous collage bits hoard and have a vast collection of sketchbooks which ensure I am never stuck for something to do. I am easily distracted and I can juggle several projects at once especially while waiting for things to dry!
Many of my collage projects are born during this respite.
Here’s a glimpse of works in progress and things to be incorporated soon or soonish.