Drawing was my passion as a child. As long as I had paper and pencil I was happy. Unfortunately, I grew up with the idea that art must be a perfect copy of reality and therefore unless it was almost as good as a photograph, it wasn't very good. But I knew I could draw. I chose my first career based on this, though as a draughtsman drawing was a technical re-creation rather than artistic impression so my initial enthusiasm was unfounded.
For years, I identified art with drawing and once I was working and raising a family, sketching took a back step. But, as my children grew, I jumped at every chance, creating story books, making board games, winning the kids creative competitions, (Yes, I was that parent!) designing cupboards, painting furniture, making bedding and curtains. I even rescued an old kitchen chair from a skip and covered it with a collage from paper napkins. It took weeks and lots of varnish to seal it. But it stayed in the family for some years.
Paper possibilities
When I visited my sister in Australia, I discovered a whole new world of paper crafts. Australians are big on crafting and there were plenty of shops selling books of patterned papers, templates, tapes and embellishments. I watched a few videos on YouTube and became fascinated with 'squash books'. All cards, for weddings or important birthdays gave me an excuse to create one. They are essentially 3 squares of 6" paper glued overlapping the bottom left hand corner then folded in a way they expand. Pockets and embellishments are added to provide space for pull outs, tags, photos. The options are endless.
After I'd made a few, I started to experiment with other card/booklet ideas and loved the opportunity to provide one as a gift to members of the wider family who married and had children. Here are a few samples.
Around the same time, I started a scrapbook of poetry and decorated facing pages. It was a great creative outlet. Playing with paper pages offers a certain freedom. It's abstract, so it can't be 'wrong' and it was never shared so there was no-one to judge. Once it was finished it became quite a tome and has become a standing joke. 'If there's a fire...save the book'
Painting
I didn't discover painting until I moved to the city in 2016. I was too scared to make mistakes, but then during lockdown, I bought some small canvases to play with.
My first steps.
Pinterest is an amazing sauce of inspiration and I learned so much, by copying images I liked. I discovered 'brush pens' and experimented with colour and shades of light an dark. I realise these aren't great works of art but I was learning to be less critical and trust the process to see what came out.
During lockdown, I admired a neighbour's acrylic painting and she encouraged me to try. She even bought me a canvas. I started by re-creating a painting I'd seen on the internet by the very talented Erik Abel. It was a geometric bear. I suppose it wasn't too far removed from the technical drawing skills I had developed during my engineering career.
Once it was completed I was so thrilled, my neighbour and I decided to fill the corridor of our apartment with art. It lasted 6 months before the management company decided it was a fire hazard and we had to remove them.
(I later offered them to a café in the city, dropped them in and never saw them again!)
Mixed media
My next experiment was collage. During Covid, I had time to play so using Pinterest for ideas I tried adding paper, fabric and sewing thread onto canvas.
At this stage in my art journey, I was running a paper crafting art class for vulnerable adults at Cornerstone community centre in Salford, so I had lots of ideas and materials to practice with. Jennifer Chamberlin offers lots of easy lessons on scrappy pictures with fabulous results.
This canvas was inspired by a shower wall panel created by Louise Dear for Victoria bathrooms. We bought the panel for our shower wall and I made a matching piece of art for the wall outside.
My next 3 pictures were large canvases, playing around with the same theme, and all were gratefully received by friends and currently hang on walls in their home. What an honour! They were created with acrylic and collage and cotton.
Anything creative
Of course not all artistic endeavours are on canvas. When my daughter returned from travels, she also wanted to join in the fun. Here is our attempt to create animals from air dry clay. Needless to say they have 'nested' in permanent homes around the flat, though I suspect they'll never leave.
This website, I'm sure is providing daily inspiration to all creatives around the world, opening up new levels of possibilities on a daily basis. My 'Pinterest life' has developed into a more extreme version of my daily life, all my interiors are colourful and bohemian, to a point my husband would never agree to, my art work is varied, fashion is loose and free, hair is unruly and flat has bolder colour scheme with lots more pictures. Oh, and I 've moved to France.
(In my 'Pinterest' life, I live in France in a converted barn with wisteria lining the veranda. I wear kaftans and head bands and lot's of colourful chunky jewellery. My husband and I have opened our home to to max 6 guests who come and enjoy painting, paper crafts and escorted bike rides. Then the final night there is a master class on pasta making. Doesn't it sound marvellous?)
This little project was an experiment with white gel pens. Lovely isn't it. So simple. It was inspired by the narrative of false impressions spread on social media platforms, a problem that will continue I feel as a 'race to the bottom' where there are enough mentally unstable teens for legislation to step in and share holders to step out.
If it doesn't work-start again
I had an idea to replicate the style of Simon Bull, after admiring his art on tapestries in Bruges recently. He paints the most amazing colourful pictures of huge flower heads. I chose sunflowers and set out to try a new technique of layering acrylic. It failed miserably as I immediately fell into the trap of drawing precisely rather than interpreting light and dark. So, I painted the canvas black and started again, this time following the whimsical floral patterns of Jo Scott. The result is fabulous and has been allowed to hang in the hallway. I suspect this was a guilty give away from my dear husband who had recently confessed to buying random posters to decorate his work loo! (I'm still smarting!)
