Paintings
My current series of paintings are all linked to London and Londonia; based on a recent series of timed sketches from London train and café windows. To enquire about the works or commission a painting please contact me via the email link.
Encouraged greatly by my mother I always drew and painted. No trip on a London train, zoo visit or café cuppa would have been complete without a tattered sketchbook, bag of pencils and clutch of felt pens. I did veer off on tangents later - photography and film at art college, years working as a London stylist, doing up houses, and earning generally - but the drawing and painting thing has always been with me.
Whilst styling I would plan the next art project, work on a painting in whatever tiny London flat I was inhabiting, design textiles and paint furniture when someone requested it.
Detailed Illustration replaced bigger scale painting when I started my children's books, but I returned to bigger canvasses - or rather wood surfaces, when we had moved to France. The new-to-me French landscape was inspirational, and a series of paintings followed, gradually replaced by more abstract works often incorporating text or allegorical themes.
My notebooks, often recording train journeys, became pivotal in my next series of paintings. Timed sketches of two minutes became the foundation for each work, the by-hazard loops and marks offering suggestion of new forms and textures in the emerging picture. Painting gradually ceased when I started writing for the adult market although I usually included chapter illustrations and book jacket artwork.
Recently while recording the Londonia audiobook I started painting again when time allowed - a continuation of the timed sketch to full artwork idea. I had always felt uncomfortable using plastic paint in plastic tubes to be then brushed onto bought wood surfaces. The works are now smaller and painted on existing junk shop canvasses/wood panels, the paint and brushes second-hand.