Welcome

Having rebuilt my artist website at the end of 2020, I decided it was time to start a blog to give readers an insight into the inner workings of my creative pieces. I am not a journal writer but do scribble notes and ideas, keep sketch books and concept boards, so blogging works for me. My website is more of a portfolio and links to purchase items in my Etsy shop, so this will be much more informal and informative about materials and mediums I use and research as well as hows and whys to reach my finished artworks and products. Hopefully there will plenty of useful titbits for readers. I hope to connect with like-minded creatives along the way. These are my loves, these are what I enjoy to create, and craft, to develop and design.

• Soft pastel artwork
• Photography
• Hand-painted silk scarves
• Silk textile fibre art
• Unique bags
• Mixed media work
• Monoprints
• Clothing

I started painting soft pastel artworks on paper in 1993 and have loved the journey so much, such a wonderful medium, so forgiving and easy for beginners to discover, I highly recommend it, no waiting for paint to dry either!, I love its immediacy of use. Photography for me goes hand in hand with all my work, I use it for reference, for escape, and to observe life from a different perspective and of course for product images. I recently bought a DSLR camera and am learning all the time. Painting on silk I started back in 90’s too and my scarves have evolved on so many levels, discovering techniques across the globe that now influence my work. Silk features hugely in my work so it was almost inevitable that what started as tissue paper and hand made paper collage cards that became popular and collectable, would evolve into luxury silk textile art pieces as wall hangings, and as clothing. My bags are influenced by tribal designs in the Sahara regions of Morocco and are unique pieces and fun to wear. Mixed media work is an ever wandering experience, it’s a journey, a fantasy, a dream, an idea, a found object, it is many things and I love to research and birth new avenues for me as an artist. I like to evolve. My monoprints are something strange as they seem to appear as something other than my perceived idea, mysterious people appear in them, but I enjoy the change from pastels. I started making clothes in my early teens and have designed and made many amazing pieces, from the regular day wear to stunning bridal gowns and special occasion wear. I adore structured bodices and of course, working in silk. So even though it appears I am multi faceted, there are materials that feature across my work and there are works that fuse and merge, that are the confluence.

I will show some of my processes, and talk about mediums, how they interact as I test out ideas. I might do a few videos too along the way. Do leave comments with your thoughts and perhaps personal experiences with materials and mediums I talk and write about.