Welcome to my Studio!
My studio is a lovely light space with a view across the garden and surrounding countryside. To see a selection of what I make here and to find out about my processes, please see below. Click on any image to enlarge.
PAINTINGS & ILLUSTRATIONS
My favourite subjects to paint are flora and fauna. I paint in watercolour and acrylics; the former sometimes on a gesso prepared surface for added texture and unpredictability! I also use inks, pencils, pens and pastels as well as adding collage elements to my work. My work can be realistic or abstract!
I enjoy bringing characters and animals to life in my illustrations. I have been commissioned to paint some as murals and to decorate furniture in children’s rooms. Illustrations have also been printed as cards and personalised name pictures and some have found their way onto websites and television!
BOTANICAL IMPRESSIONS PLASTERCASTS
My botanical impressions preserve textures and patterns of plant life in wonderful detail. To make them I arrange and then press plants, leaves and flowers gathered from my country garden or surrounding countryside, into clay. When these are removed the remaining impression is filled with fine plaster and the subsequent cast reveals the beautiful flowers and leaves in delicate relief. Some pieces are then decorated with insects – these trompe l’oeil additions are hand painted in watercolour.
PRINT MAKING
Monotypes and Monoprints
What’s the difference? Essentially, a monoprint will have a matrix – the physical surface from which an image is printed i.e. linocut, collograph plate – that can be reused several times to create prints, whereas a monotype is a one off printed image – it does not have this reusable matrix.
To make monotypes I arrange pressed plantlife onto an inked surface and print on dry or dampened paper using a table top press or gelli plate. Sometimes the plants are inked directly to transfer their image to the paper and processes can be repeated several times to build up the image in different colours. The prints are often collaged or worked into with other media to create a layered image and are sometimes made into little folded books. Others are made by first inking up a plate, laying on a piece of paper and then drawing onto this. Removing the paper reveals the inked image on the reverse.
For collographs, I use plant material and other found objects adhered to mountboard. I may carve into, or peel away the surface of the plate to create other marks. After sealing the plate, I either ink in the intaglio way which involves pushing ink into the plate, then carefully polishing off to create lighter areas, or by the relief method, rolling the ink directly across the surface. The plate is then run through a press with dampened paper. Each print is individual as the inking process cannot be exactly replicated each time! Linoprints are made by carving a design into lino, rolling with ink and printing either by hand with a baren, or running through the press.
HANDMADE BOOKS & CARDS
I love making things with paper! I enjoy making simple folded books as well as more complicated stitched and bound books. I make blank sketch or note books covered with decorative papers and artist’s books created with my own prints, paintings and drawings. I like to fold Origami butterflies for cards and create special envelopes for them.