Creative Me

As a child I would gaze into the woodland from my bunkbed wondering if one day I would be able to create the layers and textures I saw in the view from my window. I was always in awe of nature and its amazing gifts. I loved the mist in the trees and the way the sunlight danced throughout the landscape, disappearing from one instant to the next.

Elusive as it was I learnt to observe and try to remember what I saw with my eyes rather than the flattened image of a photo. Later I came to realise that painting what I see is a beginning, the stimulus, and what I leave on the canvas is my soul. It’s my emotional reaction to the world around me.

On returning from Scotland, where I lived the dream often painting en plein air,  I found myself back in my childhood neighbourhood in Sheffield. There I painted to my hearts content during lockdown. At first it was from photos people sent from Scotland. The twelve commissions I did during my first year back were all about places people were missing during the pandemic!

I started engaging in online courses, often based on abstract art to help me heal. My beloved outdoors closed, so I started to play around with line shape, tone  and differences. Although these paintings engaged my trapped mind they also informed my style and when I finally returned to the landscape I did so with a fresh mark making process.

Raise a glass and celebrate with me. I’ve just sold three paintings depicting misty layers of my childhood landscape. These were the first paintings I’d done in ages that were about my love of the landscape and its wonders, without a care about who would want to buy them! I found that I had arrived back where I started and was filled with great joy.