Inspiration for paintings starts as an initial idea based on a memory or something I’ve experienced or eaten. I often write it down in my sketchbook and come back to it at a later date. Most of my work is based upon observational drawings or staged photographs. With Wild Blackberries I did some quick sketches and took lots of photos, as I knew it would take a long time to draw and the fruit would spoil. Currently I enjoy using loose washes of watercolour as it has a light quality that suits the subjects I’m painting.
Many of my paintings are reproduced professionally in small editions as Giclee prints - information on where to purchase prints & originals can be found on the Shop page.
Watercolour and Blotted Line
Dark shiny blackberries and cook book illustrations were some of the inspiration behind this painting.
More can be read on the journal page
Watercolour and Blotted Line
I wanted to capture the contrast of the soft dusky red berries against the bright sharp ridges of the glass bowl.
Read more on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
I am very fond of blackberries and they hold many wonderful memories of my childhood and walks with my husband around Kent orchards. The composition is simple and I wanted to capture the heavy fruit on the spindly, prickly stems.
More thoughts about this piece and the original pencil drawing are available to read on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
Beautiful bright red strawberries are one of my favourite summer fruits. I love their little dimples and the distinctive pattern of their highlights. This painting continues with the container theme with the berries just touching the surface of the punnet. The added edition of a wasp is inspired by one of my favourite childhood books. More about this piece can be read on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
The flavour of cherries reminds me of warm summer days and I wanted to capture their luscious colour and shine. This painting is also a continuation of observing food in glass containers. I was particularly interested in the way the juice formed shapes as the cherries pressed against the glass.
A short time lapse film of the blotted line technique used for Bite can be viewed on the Journal Page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
Rhubarb is always one of the first plants in our garden to poke it’s head up in the spring and I love it’s tightly curled leaves. This painting was a continuation of exploring contrast and textures of objects in glass. It was interesting to try and capture the mini world below the water level with its distortions and refractions.
A look at the process behind this painting can be read on the Journal Page.
Blotted Line & Watercolour
The aroma of old fashioned sweets was the inspiration for these paintings. I used to love visiting our local corner shop and choosing penny sweets to put in a small white paper bag. The colours and dusty texture of the sweets bring back so many childhood memories, my favourites are still the milk teeth with peanuts coming a close second.
Blotted Line & Watercolour
This collection of paintings has continued to grow and develop since my initial experiments of combining observational studies with the blotted line technique and watercolour.
The seaside is an inspiring place and the colours, smell and textures of seafood remind me of happy times spent rock pooling and collecting shells.
Giclee prints and greetings cards of seafood paintings are available here..
Watercolour, Ink and Pencil
A still life of a lemon sole against crisp crinkled wrapping paper from the fishmongers.
More details on the journal page.
Watercolour, Ink and Pencil
A still life of beach finds on a seaweed stripe inspired by a visit to Pett Level in East Sussex.
More details on the journal page.
Watercolour and Ink
A still life of seaweed on a hand printed pattern of pebbles, exploring the theme - A Sense of Place.
More details on the journal page.
Watercolour and Blotted Line
The shimmering scales of the humble herring are incredibly beautiful. It was interesting to study their colours, whilst exploring composition and backgrounds.
More details can be found on the journal page.
Watercolour and Blotted Line
Inspired by the rich smokey golden colours of the fish contrasting with the delicate tones of the bag and shadows.
More details can be found on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
The jewel like oranges and blues were what first attracted me to painting sardines. They have delicate silver skin on their bellies that contrasts with the smooth deep blues on their backs. My main experience of eating these fish is from a tin and I wanted to keep that top to tail pattern of how they are packaged in the composition. I like the rhythm and curve of how their bodies are pressed together.
More about this piece can be found on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
Squeezed into a glass the prawns become a jumble of pink patterns and shapes. I wanted to capture the contrast between the refractions of the glass and the segmented bodies.
More about this piece can be found on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
This painting was commissioned by a private client who has a passion for British seafood and in particular, native lobsters. The colours and patterns of this species are incredibly beautiful and proved quite challenging to paint.
More about the lobster can be read on the journal page.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
I have a bit of a thing for prawns at the moment. The translucent segments of their bodies are beautiful to study. I also love their thin spindly legs. I produced two versions of this small painting as I wanted to donate one to the Twitter Art Exhibition and needed to post it by a certain date. The other was to be used for a greetings card illustration and giclee print.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
I find the colour and patterns of mackerel fascinating, their iridescence was quite a challenge to capture. One of my favourite childhood memories was going out to sea, mackerel fishing with my family in Barmouth. We caught quite a few fish and cooked them back at the campsite we were staying at. I don’t know if that was the first time I had eaten them but I do remember how delicious they tasted.
For this painting I wanted a change from previous compositions and used the wrapping paper they came in, to add a more diagonal shape. After mentioning to the writer David Hensley that I was considering painting mackerel, he wrote a poem about them.
Barbecued Fish (Mackerel Braai) by David Hensley
Ice-smooth skin, glistening
from your fight to avoid
coming
with me
I had you hooked
from the start, yet still you hoped
to slip away
You are gutted
lying still
ready
for the heat of my fire
my coals glow for you
soon i will enjoy
your fragrant fresh flesh
Spider Crab No.9
Watercolour & Blotted Line
I have never seen a live Spider Crab in the wild. Whenever I go rock pooling I collect fragments of their lumpy shells as I find the inside texture fascinating. This specimen was bought from the fishmongers and as the drawing stage for this painting took quite awhile, the crab was frozen so that it wouldn't perish too quickly.
I am thrilled that this painting has won The Artist Magazine Award at the 2021 Royal Society of Marine Artists Exhibition at the Mall Galleries and have updated the journal page with photos of the interview by Susie Hodge featured in the September 2023 issue magazine interview
Watercolour & Blotted Line
It was while walking through Borough Market in London that I first came across tiger prawns and was quite struck by their size, colour. and markings. They have beautiful subtle pinky brown tones that blend into each other. As with the painting Mackerel I wanted to explore a different composition and laid the prawn on the wrapping paper from the fishmongers.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
I find prawns fascinating creatures, they remind me of the film Alien and I particularly like their translucent armour.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
The inspiration for this print comes from many influences. I have always been interested in scientific and botanical illustration for it’s detail and composition. As a child I was given a fish poster from a chip shop and was fascinated by the variety of species and layout. With this piece, I played around with the size of the subjects and balancing the colours.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
I found the oyster shells on a day out at Whitstable Beach and was quite taken by the contrast between their texture and delicate colours. They really suited the blotted line technique as it complemented the uneven surface of the shell.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
One of my favourite memories is linked to the painting of this crab. During our summer holidays my daughter and I often go rock pooling. One year we found a beautiful edible crab and she decided to name it Bernard. From that moment on, we have always gone looking for Bernards.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
My local fishmonger always has beautiful displays of crustaceans. I particularly love the pinks and oranges of the langoustine's shell.
Watercolour & Blotted Line
Like many people, when I visit a beach I can’t help but put shells in my pocket. My favourite place is Wembury Bay in Devon. I used to visit as a child and in recent years have spent many happy holidays there with my own family collecting shells and rock pooling. During our last visit I was quite taken with the broken limpets and started saving my favourites. I love unwrapping my little treasures months after and remembering places and people.
For this painting I wanted to enlarge the scale and recreate their textures. It was interesting to see how, once lit, their shadows formed dramatic shapes that were incorporated into the composition.
An ongoing series documenting the food items in our kitchen. Originally I began looking through the cupboards to find something colourful to exploring mark making and colour mixing. As the drawings developed I realised how much I associate food with people, places and occasions.
More recently I have begun to record the contrast between the materials used in packaging with the food in its natural state.
I spotted this box in our local supermarket and fell in love with the colour and diamond pattern. It’s a very tactile box and has a worn softness as it gets used. The flavour isn’t over powering and I use it in savoury dishes like chilli or stew. Apparently it’s good on raw tomato as well.
Advocaate is a very particular shade of yellow, warm and creamy with a slight hint of pink - the sort of colour you can taste.
Another festive favourite that reminds me of family Christmases. When I was a child we were allowed a very weak snowball and I loved the colour and flavour of the cocktail cherry that accompanied it.
Christmas isn’t complete without a dark chocolate orange. I love the smell and feel of the wrapper as it opens and the way the chocolate fans out.
Pots of supermarket basil are so different from the ones grown at home and I wanted to capture the floppy jumble of intense green leaves with a continuous line drawing where I mostly didn't look at the paper.
I love eating the leaves with sliced tomato and in one of my favourite Hairy Bikers Thai inspired recipes, stir fried with chicken, chillies and green beans. It's supposed to be Thai Basil but I use whatever basil is growing or from the shops. Spicy, fragrant and absolutely delicious.
I felt a bit sorry for this bunch of beetroot as its leaves had been chopped off and the stems bound by a pink elastic band. It got me thinking about how unless you grow your own we don't often see food in its natural state. I did think about finding an example of beetroot and painting it in glorious leaf but decided to record what I saw and experienced.
There are so many memories attached to this purple vegetable and my favourite was when my friends daughter made fun of how I pronounce it. I had never noticed, but I manage to not pronounce the 'T' sounds. Every time I eat it I remember all the laughter we had that night.
My dad used to make fancy spring onions by trimming them and cutting a cross in each end, then dropping them in a bowl of cold water so they fanned out. They always seemed slightly exotic and only around in the summer. Nowadays I enjoy them sliced at an angle (same with carrots - don't like them round) and added to omelettes, Stirfrys, baked potatoes or scattered over boiled rice.
I painted this bunch as winter was moving to spring and I couldn't stop looking at green things. I really liked the difference of the blue elastic band against the green and white parts.
I can't remember the first time I ate a gherkin, they were something we had at home that came out when we had salad. We always had whole ones, unlike the these sliced ones but always Mrs Elswood and there is something I find very comforting about the red and green of the lid.
This painting is possibly the start of a new series, however it also over laps with Cupboard Love and so until there are more it will live here.
My son introduced this condiment to the family and I used to put it on everything. I especially like it to pep up swede.
Peppadews are the most amazing red and always remind me of a friend who first introduced me to them in a crisp salad with mozzarella and pine nuts.
The first time I tried a caper berry was in Normandy on a tuna galette. I like the flavour as it’s softer than sharp vinegary capers and quite like a few chopped up on pizza.
One of my favourite sandwiches is egg and cress, I love the peppery taste and it’s greenery.
Salty and zesty, I originally bought these to try making a lamb tagine but instead had them sliced with salmon wrapped in foil.
I love to spend time gardening and often find plants inspire my work. The shoe illustrations were my first attempts at using the blotted line technique and were based on what was growing in our vegetable patch at the time.
Recently I have painted the wisteria that tumbles over a wooden pergola covering our patio and creating a quiet shady area to sit and listen to the bees.
Blotted Line and Watercolour
May is one of my favourite months in the garden as the wisteria in the garden begins to bloom and fills the air with it’s beautiful perfume.
More about the inspiration of this painting can be found on the journal page.
Blotted Line and Watercolour
72 x 52cm
Another of my favourite scented flowers. Summer wouldn’t be the same without sweet peas intoxicating perfume.
More about this painting can be found on the journal page.
Blotted Line and Watercolour
Blotted Line and Watercolour
Blotted Line and Watercolour
Blotted Line and Watercolour
Blotted Line and Watercolour
Blotted Line and Watercolour
The initial idea for this collection was to combine shoes with another object. Over the years I have tried growing vegetables and thought it would be fun if you could grow your own footwear.
These pieces are part of a collaboration between myself and the writer David Hensley, who composes poetry about food.
Blotted Line & Mixed Media
Illustration for Bananas - The King’s Hand by David Hensley
Blotted Line & Mixed Media
Illustration for A Dish of Broccoli by David Hensley
Blotted Line & Mixed Media
Illustration for Potato, Sweet Potato by David Hensley
After seeing my vegetable shoes, a client commissioned six original blotted line paintings to be hung in their new open-plan kitchen/dining room. They wanted the art to reflect their passion for cooking and love of music. All the instruments are played by members of the family and the Butternut Squash Guitar was based on Jeff Beck’s Fender as he was a musical influence for the client.
Using the instruments as a starting point, I then found vegetables to compliment their shapes. It was also important that each painting worked in harmony together, so as well as using a blue background, all the colours are linked. I am particularly fond of the Garlic Mandolin as it was drawn from one I had grown myself and the shape suited the bulbous shape of the instrument. The original artworks were created using the blotted line technique onto a coloured background before painting with gouache. Each painting has been reproduced as a limited edition giclee print and greetings card that can be purchased here.
Gouache & Blotted Line
Gouache & Blotted Line
Gouache & Blotted Line
Gouache & Blotted Line
Gouache & Blotted Line
Gouache & Blotted Line
These illustrations are based on my cat Millie Mew when she was a kitten. I spent a lot of time observing her movements then drew her from memory. I broke her shape down into simple forms and tried to capture her funny stare. Being a tabby she has stripes on her forehead that look like the letter M, so I exaggerated that as part of her markings. The other characteristics I noticed were a little pot belly, especially after lunch and the way she stretched out her claws, separating each pad.
One of the influences linked to my drawings of Millie was an exhibition I visited of Ronald Searle’s drawings - Les Très Riches Heures De Mrs Mole. Searle produced a series of drawings for his wife while she was under going chemotherapy. His beautiful observation of everyday life of Mrs Mole is charming and very touching. All the way through the collection Mrs Mole wears a diamond patterned apron and this inspired me to create a similar design for the rug Mille Mew stretches on.
Watercolour & Ink
Watercolour & Ink
Watercolour & Ink
Watercolour & Ink
A selection of blank greetings cards of my original paintings and hand made linocut cards.
All cards are available to purchase online here..
For wholesale enquiries please email
Illustrations of David Hensley’s Poems
Linocut
Hand-painted linocut cards
