Shades of Joy : a magazine feature

I was delighted to have my art work chosen for the lead feature of a brand new local quality magazine "Tyne Valley Living". Well known arts journalist, Helen Compson, interviewed me and wrote a very well informed and entertaining article about my story and my work. It's not easy to understand the ins and outs of printmaking but she did a fantastic job. She begins:

"Golden sunlight burnishing a meadow of poppies. A heron, serene in its riparian fishing ground, framed by bulrushes. A rosy-fingered dawn unfurling translucent shades of vermilion and magenta in a seascape of greys and mauves."

The two pictures of me, above, were taken by Hexham Courant photographer Kate Buckingham on a photo-shoot in Whittle Dene (Horsley, close to my studio). I gave quite a bit of thought to the colours of my clothes so that they would fit in with my artwork and the natural environment but in the end the magazine designers used a black and white photograph! Still, it's great to have these professional photos to use on my website.

The article is over 4 pages that you can see here. If you want to read the whole thing, please get in touch by email and I'll send you a copy. For copyright reasons I can't reproduce it in full here. But here's a couple more quotes:

"The ideas for all of them begin life in the sketchbook that she never dares take out. While her pictures roam up hill and down dale, through fields and woodland and , latterly, our flower-filled coastal grasslands, that little black book stays firmly at home."

" 'I want my work to be bright, to be joyful, and so I pull out the colours of nature in a very exaggerated way. Rather than just having brown for beech leaves, I'll have reds, browns and pinks...a colour-chord - rather than playing one note, you play several notes together to more powerful effect.' "

I had a fantastic response from my email subscribers to the heron picture "Beyond the Bulrushes" featured in the magazine. One long time follower and friend bought the original and others have purchased prints which will be listed on my website very soon. I'd been turning over in my mind the idea of including animals in my landscapes for a couple of years but this response encouraged me to go ahead and plan some new works.

So the heron will be making a come-back in a square image with a different composition. This is rough sketch of the design idea. I'll need it to make all the stencils the right size.

This one will be "A Charm of Goldfinches". It's always best for an artist to draw subjects they are familiar with and since we have had a family of goldfinches visiting our bird table all year, I felt I understood their habits and designed the composition to suggest their busy movement.

There will be six images in this series of British birds. They will be very complex to make in the monotype medium so please be patient waiting for the finished results - it'll will be 2 - 3 months until they're ready to show you. JOIN MY EMAIL LIST to be among the first to see them and have an opportunity to purchase the originals.