All the Little Things

I have always felt much more at ease making multiple drawings and paintings. My sketchbooks at college were filled with pages that flowed and linked yet when it came to a final piece I seized up. Maybe it was the pressure. So now I try and approach my artwork as sketchbook pages; part of a bigger theme not just one statement. One of the themes I return to time and again is the moon. I started drawing it as a development from the circles I was using in my prints; it was the perfect circle; with detail and meaning. Kingfisher...

The idea of forests as a child was tangled in fairytales for me. The woods at the back of my friend's house a place of mystery and danger. This feeling was carried into my college years due to reading Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber". These twisted versions of already dark stories set my imagination off and I filled sketchbooks with these tales. Much later I started drawing woodlands and bears; my first screen prints after a long break.  I had moved to Hebden Bridge and rather than the woods being places of trepidation they were places to calm my mind....

I began drawing birds at Art College. We had been set a project to make an artist's book based on whatever we liked and I very much liked Barry Hines "A Kestral for a Knave" at the time. I was in a strange stage of life where I had grown out of the small northern town where I came from but I was yet to find my feet in in this new and strange place; Edinburgh. I was reading a lot of northern literature as I liked to be transported to the comfort of the hills, yet most of it...

Hello Everyone, How are things? It is a hard slog lockdown three isn't it? I was thinking about what has helped me stay a bit robust during this time and it is definitely these three things: 1) self care; yoga, being mindful of getting early nights and eating well 2) nature; as many walks as possible 3) creativity. I was asked to do a talk about creativity by the incredible Hannah Anstee, for a women's circle and I thought I would share some thoughts and tips on here. Before we even start to create there are barriers; my biggest one...

In Autumn, 2019 I began a journey way out of my comfort zone; filming to appear on the BBC1 programme; 'Home is Where the Art is" . The main premise of the programme is that three artists compete for a commission, but it also gives a window into the world of buying art. Why do certain pieces speak to us? What clues to our personality do our homes give away? We began this process by looking at the potential buyers house, this was called the "snoop" as the buyers weren't there and we had to glean what information we could....