I have a confession to make… I have a bit of an obsession with brooches. It started all innocently: ‘this coat could do with jazzing up’, little gifts from friends – now I can’t walk past a charity shop or art gallery without coming away with some addition to the collection. I realised I needed …
Ack, it’s a hard one? How personal is too much? To share health-related stuff or not? Nobody want’s to read a depressing blog post, but also health-stuff is a big part of whats going on in my life – creative and otherwise – just now… I’m just back from a couple of hospital visits – …
My recent studio re-organisation made me think about what art materials and equipment I really value (and what I don’t – hence the several bin bags of no-longer-needed media, sketches and other might-be-useful-one-day items that I cleared out of my working space). Art Materials I Love… I thought it could be fun to share a …
Ballone Castle sits out on the wild and windswept Tarbat Peninsula, near the villages of Portmahomack and Rockfield. This far tip of the peninsula projects so out in to the North Sea that it forms a favourite spot for spotting dolphins and whales (and, if you ask my daughters, mermaids). Even though we live only …
It’s been a massive labour of love, but after many years to struggling on with my old website I decided it was time to prioritise the job of building a fabulous new one that was truly fit for purpose! The notion was to provide a virtual window into my studio, and into my creative life. …
Rightly or wrongly, I often cringe a bit when I hear or see the term ‘wall art’… It’s a ubiquitous but kind-of confused term, often used by someone when they don’t quite know what to describe something as – usually something decorative that goes on a wall, but they don’t know (or care) enough to …
Some of you lovely folk who follow my work will have seen me mention recently on social media that I was needing to take time out from painting to have some surgery (thank you so much for the lovely well wishes). I thought I would explain a little… I’ve tended, over the years, to keep …
I’m sharing this textiles experiment that I’ve just completed. It’s a direct progression from the work I’ve been doing exploring household materials and using them create abstract collages – old textiles, wallpaper, etc. I’m really interested in embroidery and how in the past it could be taken as a marker of accomplishment or value for …
It’s that time again, time to review the ~~ Artist Statement ~~, that most toe-curling of jobs – not least because its a rare person that enjoys writing about themselves, but also because you find yourself trying to condense years of work into just a few sentences, and because you really have to think about …
Last weekend I decided to revamp the studio. Even my husband had been saying it wasn’t the nicest space to be in – and he’s not usually that perceptive about these things! It was too dark, and whilst there was a space for most things, open shelving meant no amount of tidying ever seemed to …