About the teacher 

 

Welcome to my studio!

I’ve introduced myself but I haven’t told you much about me.

I was very fortunate to have an artist as a Mother, confident and free with colour, an illustrator and a story teller with her expert pen and wash. Maybe you are of a generation that remembers the late Forties when few could afford colour photos of their family occasions and studios would send out such pictures to be "tinted"? Mother was an artist they often chose! So my skills were learnt from a excellent technical artist who knew how to turn 2D into 3D and made me understand "why" things are done as they are as much as "how".

My career actually began in radio and then in training others for radio – and slowly the training of people in communication skills from sales to public presentation took over. Then from the dizzy heights of senior management a spell in an Intensive Care Unit convinced me that I had become very good at stress! Before I’d even left the ward, however I had opened a sketch pad and then a notepad and started a fulfilling career as a communicator in art and words.

My chosen Media is…

Watercolour – "but not as we know it!" For some reason a budding painter will say "I think I’d like to paint pictures but as I’m a novice I’ll just stick to watercolour!" and none of us so called artists ever stops them! Watercolour is one of the most difficult forms to successfully master. Oils may be a bit messy but fun, acrylics controllable but you have to work steadily and gouache, pastel and other hands-on colours create great colour emotions. For me the only way to create sensitivity, detail, and something living is watercolour pencil.

Don’t be fooled into believing that you’re above ‘crayons’ because a decent set of watercolour pencils makes you a master (or mistress) of your world. Why carry clever little "Swiss Army Knife" boxes ingeniously containing water. pallet, paper, brushes and baby easel? Put a small cartridge paper pad in your pocket, some primary colour watercolour pencils and stroll through your own little part of heaven snatching a moments intensity of nature, some small study detail and take it home and work it up to a masterpiece. I can be as sensitive as a gossamer thread or put a single strand of colour into an animal’s fur or fill my study with a colour darker than black. But when I’m ready I can get a little secretion from a pore and start working my picture with my fingers changing areas of texture completely! Get a trace of water on the nib of the pencil and change another area of your creation – its like being a kid in nursery all over again!

I could – and do – go on for ages! But that’s how I work and that’s the enthusiasm within me that makes me want to train youand anyone in the joys of art and the kudos that watercolour painting can bring you!