Flowers - Painted Photographic Prints

I began my freelance career making large photographic colour prints of flowers and painting on to them with oils, sometimes I stitched onto the surface with a sewing machine. I hadn't seen any other photographic work that had stitched surfaces and I thought it was an interesting idea. It added another dynamic and gave the pieces a different quality. I gained a lot of early success with card and poster publishers with these images and I think it was because the idea was unusual and original.

I still make photographic pieces and continue to add other elements using collage and painting to experiment and explore. I am always drawn to flowers and still life objects. I like very simple arrangements. My main focus is always the differing qualities of natural light and of colour.

In my Etsy shop I sell prints and posters but I also have some original pieces for sale. This is the only venue for buying my originals as I rarely sell them on.
One day I would like to do a book of my flower images integrated with some of my landscapes of Norfolk. I am always recording . I have a plan chest crammed with prints and experiments that I would like to do something with............

Love Hearts!

I love decorative hearts and often use them in my work. All of the above pieces are in my Etsy shop.

New canvas pieces....

I now have a 'Ready to hang' section in my Etsy shop. These two collages on canvas have just been listed today.

Ready to hang collage on canvas....

This week I'm working on some new collage pieces straight onto canvas so they are ready to hang. I'm doing some more tea time/ still life images to start with like the three above which are in my Etsy shop. I hope to have some up tommorrow for viewing. I think they'd be lovely as kitchen pictures.

All things nautical...

I have several paper mache pieces for sale in my Etsy shop on a seaside theme. I've included a selection of images. I particularly love the Pirate figures and enjoyed painting the costumed figures.

Faces....

I run several Art sessions each week after school for children aged 5 -11 years. They are really popular and I've been running them for about 8 years now. I have always taught art alongside being an artist. Living in the countryside I wanted initially to offer creative opportunities for young children in rural areas. I moved from Brighton to Norwich in 1997 and I was quite shocked at how few 'art' opportunities there were here. I run my Art sessions to try and give children a chance to use lots of different materials and media but to also develop real confidence as they progress. In some schools Art seems to have a smaller and smaller place in the curriculum. They develop some amazing work and we have a proper exhibition of the art work each school term. I always make an artwork myself to start each project alongside visual ideas boards. I don't think its fair to ask them to do something I haven't attempted myself first.
I started a new project with my Art groups last week looking at faces and expressions. I wanted the idea to be really colourful and appealling so I made this piece as inspiration using a large sheet of cardboard as backing and making the headshapes and hair from newspaper and masking tape. I then painted all the detail. I used lots of bright patterns in stripes and spots and added hair accessories from cardboard. The children loved the idea and are developing some brilliant responses. One of the older girls who responds to anything decorative is making some wonderful hairstyles from curls and spirals of newspaper and some of the boys are making mohicans and punks for some of their characters. I hope to include some examples when they begin to paint their work.

Butterflies and Flowers......

I've been working flat out all weekend to finish new work for SURTEX next week in New York. My agent is going out towards the end of the week for meetings prior to the event and new work needs to go into the portfolios before then. When I'm really busy I get on to a real roll and I can produce new pieces quite quickly.
Last week I picked up some old wallpaper books to use as collage papers in my work. One in particular had some beautiful textured papers in bright colours with almost powdery textures that were lovely to use. I felt like a child with a new paint box. Anyway I used these to make some of my new work. The Butterflies and Flowers shown are two of the images I've just finished and are now for sale in my Etsy shop.