Artist

Biography

Welsh born, London sown, California grown.

I grew up drawing castles in Wales, went to art school in Bristol (West of England College of Art & Design), travelled drawing, photographing and rock climbing in the USA, became a creative director in a leading London multi-media agency, moved back to California and started my own brand identity agency, raised three kids, saw them off to college and now I'm back on the road again. Life is an adventure, full-time painting and shooting, traveling the USA, meeting and making friends, finding treasure in places and people...

My artist teachers are many and diverse but I have never entertained a formal how to paint influence. The love of photography masters like Cartier-Bresson, Steichen, Paul Strand got me started in terms of finding meaning and depth in my work, honest, simple, disciplined ~ know what you are looking for, capture the essence. Monet, Lautrec, Gauguin, Matisse and of course, Cezanne, brought me on as a painter, thier love of nature and humanity I felt, colors bold and free, texture, energy, life!

I paint en plein air mostly, watercolors, and photograph nature or subjects for portraits typically painted in oils. I love to create large given the chance (murals are a fav), gestural at times, tight and considered via a process of sketches to digital projections also happen. I have a direction but i always let the painting tell me where it wants to go ~ control combined with the surprises and delights of a painting come to be from a subject captivating, lovely and forever.

Art is at the very core of my soul. Decades of learning, understanding, feeling and doing has brought me to a place where paint flows with ease, it's as if I just have to show up with the materials and let the painting happen as it is want to do ~ a servant creating at the bidding of a painting's call. It is a pleasure to be in such stage of my life, and now if you will forgive me, I have a painting to make!