Who is this person?
Born in Wiltshire England drawing from age 4 when draughtsman Dad taught her how to make volume by shading….
The idea of drawing your own world (that little kid’s book of the dude with the pencil) – love of cartoons.
It was a day of mourning finding out life wasn’t like that. Knowing Jesus has restored all the love of real life that should be mine, and is, with a joy in living.
So — I drew and painted, loved it always, did Airfix and crafted, made many many things — and my Dad painted and mended houses and said I was too young to use his oil paints. Which I really wanted to do, made it my ambition.
Deflected by school into science, and after a PhD (and a year in Paris), I picked up the oil painting dream with my first job, and went to the Art Student’s League of New York to learn what colours to buy, what brushes, how to paint. There, professional artists “take you off the street” and will teach you; its paid for class by class, if you can get in. So we met up in cafe’s (diners) after class, talked about light, admiring some painters’ work… a good time and still have friends from there.
San Francisco started painting larger pictures (the New York ones, and Angel Island). I wanted to paint anything, not believing it possible, and finding in fact, it was so, with careful observation of form, colour, relative size (think, grid).
My Uncle John, back home, taught me all about the techniques of the old masters in one evening; I still use these methods- except that I find a dull (mid-tone) background dims the entire painting, so follow Jan van Eyck, and paint on a white background, to make the colours leap.
Well, I painted a lot but did not exhibit much – jobs, a daughter (pride of my life), and moving to Scotland. Always painting was my “other half”. I worked on the iPad as soon as they came along, and found a way to work on any tablet (use Autodesk Sketchpad Pro). In Dundee a couple of lasses put me onto Medibang (which I use on my phone) and ArtSet, which works just like art materials with limited colours, a great challenge (I don’t pay for these). I also started with Brushes, inspired by that chap who exhibited huge blobby tree pictures in London – and Sketchpad in the early days. But ArtSet set me free, with a quirky oil pen that expanded the brushstroke at the end of the line and – well, painting with a fat finger means you are always taking risks.
The iPad is clean and tidy – but a brush and paint feel great – and I still love my pencil the best (as long as the colour is sharp).
Photography always surprises me – I do this when not painting and have thousands of pictures that I’d love to do something with.
I invented “Livesketch” and did much work in Dundee and Edinburgh, and round the world, sketching directly on iPad (including Israel and India).
So, now I have a lot of work to do to present all this work to my friends.
We have so little time.
My work is dedicated to all who enjoy it, and the Best of it to God the Most High, his beloved annointed sent one Jesus, Yeshua Messiah, Saviour and Lord, and to the Holy Spirit who helps me get there, is the seed planted to make me a God-person, part of His amazing family, and to Whom I look forwards to going, meeting my parents again.
