Commission - signed, sealed, delivered!

Where Wrens and Hawks Soar has been delivered to a "delighted client" and that makes me happy. Art is so personal to both the artist and the viewer. When I create -  there is just me and the paint working together in a zone of creativity.  When the painting is complete, it takes on a new life for someone else so it is important to me that it enhances the space they live in.

15 Sackville Street, near The Royal Academy

Really pleased to see 3 of my works up in the foyer of 15 Sackville Street, just around the corner from the RA.  They can be viewed there until June 2018.  For enquiries, please contact Degree Art

Exhibition at The Enterprise Centre

Several works on exhibition at the Enterprise Centre, Derby until June 2018.

Exhibition at the Royal Derby Hospital

Delighted to have many of my works on exhibition at the hospital until the end of February, 2018.

Creative Process

Rather than art movements themselves, I feel my work has been influenced most by my creative interpretation of the Japanese concept of Wabi-Sabi and a belief in the positive outcomes of serendipity i.e. the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way!

Many Japanese philosophies embrace living in the moment and accepting 'the flow' and it is these concepts that influence my practice most. I work with the paint, with the colours and see where they take me - places I didn't even know I wanted to go!

It is important to me that the space I work in is set up so Wabi-Sabi can take place so I prepare the creative environment by setting out the 'palette', the tools and the 'blank canvas'. I am conscious of the theme I am working with e.g. water, co-existence, love and then I let the work just happen!

Some people call it intuition, some call it instinct or being in touch with our inner child! For me, it is about clearing my mind - getting thoughts out of the way so the creativity can take their place! I guess it is a form of meditation. I work on at least 2 pieces at a time. The next morning I will come in and take a look at what has been created the day before and work out what the pieces need next and how they need 'nurturing' with maybe some colour, some depth or some texture. The hardest part by far is knowing when to stop.

Exhibition at Deda

Deda, Derby are hosting an exhibition of a large selection of my works from January 5th, 2017 through to the end of March.

Featured in Inside Artists Magazine

There is a lovely feature on page 58 of issue 5 of Inside Artists Magazine.

Strata 3 in Vogue magazine

Really pleased that Strata 3 is featured in April's edition of Vogue, also delighted to hear that the colour palette I used to create it is in vogue!  Strata 3 is a 'statement piece' and looks good on its own but pairs up well with Strata 4 too. Both can be seen and purchased at www.degreeart.com

Cloud Watching

This is why I paint clouds……when you look down on seemingly endless cloudscapes from the dizzy heights of air travel, it is like a glimpse into another world, yet that world is always there above us in some form.  When you look up to the clouds above from tall grass on a warm sunny day it is still like looking at another world but through a perspective we are more familiar with.

My fascination with clouds is knowing that every single one is made up of water droplets that have been around since the year dot (whenever that was!), so every single cloud is all of history before my eyes! And the other mindblowing thing is that some of the water in that cloud may well be in my body!   So in that sense, when I paint clouds, I am painting something that is part of a whole and a part of me.  Clouds are formed and yet formless, they come in all shapes, sizes, colours, never the same…..in parallel to the process I go through to create the paintings.

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. Rabindranath Tagore

A Day in the Studio . . .

“Art is not about thinking something up. It is the opposite -- getting something down.” The Artist's Way Julia Cameron

As the kettle bubbles away, it is with fresh eyes that I view the canvasses I worked on the day before.  Which ones feel complete?  Which ones need more time and tlc?  Which canvas is really ‘speaking’ to me today?  Not forgetting to remind myself that less is more!

It is important not to think too much.  The best thing is to let myself get lost in the colours, no thinking, just doing. Just being.

Each work may have some qualities that are similar to the others but each piece is different to all the others, just like a cloud, just like a person.

And if I have truly lost myself in its creation - when the work is finished, it is as if  I am ‘meeting' and seeing it for the first time.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep”. Scott Adams

First Impressions

On sunny days like today, I often ponder some more about the nature of colour and the relationship with light.  It is said that the Impressionists were actually realists, as they believed that truth came from light.  I’m not exactly sure how this belief would have informed their everyday practice but I do know that they were believed to have been the first artists to mix colour right on the canvas as opposed to using palettes for mixing. 

When I am truly in the ‘moments’ of creativity and painting, I mix colour by instinct and on the canvas so it is comforting to know that not keeping strict records of the colour ratios for each piece is a practice I share with the Impressionists! The colour wheel is something I have hanging in my studio but it is not something that I refer to. Why not?  For me, it is too precise and scientific and therefore can constrain rather than open up possibilities.

There are many fascinating theories about colour and mood, spectrums and science, reflection and absorption but perhaps the thing that fascinates me most of all is our varied perception of light and colour. How could I ever experience how you experience blue?  Can we even imagine a new colour made up of colours beyond our perceived spectrum?

It is tricky for us to know if you and I see or experience the same blue because each of us has a unique way of seeing the world based on biology and how we have decided to ‘log’ purple, violet or aubergine!  To me, this is yet another reason why visual art is so exciting – the experience of any piece will always be unique, even to the same ‘viewer’ under different light conditions and from one day to another.  So…. there are first impressions, second impressions and if we are lucky there are also lasting impressions.