The Artist behind The Art
'A Passion for Animal Art'
My love of animals and passion for art have served as a guiding light, inspiring me to embark on a path of discovery as a self taught artist. Growing up I used art as a form of escapism.
I work from my home studio, which is nestled in the foothills of the Quantocks in Somerset. This set up allows me to flow in and out of my studio whenever creativity sets in wether in the day or night.
When drawing I enjoy listening to music as it allows my mind to be calm so creativity, imagination and pencils flow seamlessly across the paper.
In 2019 I decided to transition love spending time with my family and pets at home, going on day trips out exploring, sipping earl grey tea/coffee, walking in the beautiful countryside or finding ways to help support vital wildlife conservation efforts through my art.
As for my education, ​I studied GCSE Art at school then went on to study Art & Languages at Richard Huish college in Taunton.
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It wasn’t until my first pregnancy in 2016, that I chose to pick up my graphite pencils once again to pass the time sketching whilst on maternity leave. From there I expanded my knowledge and understanding of what materials and techniques I needed to use to create detailed animal portraits. I purchased my faber castell polychromos colour pencils in 2017 and began my next task of learning a new way of drawing. ​​
I am very thankful to all of my art collectors, supporters and family for helping to transform my dream into my reality.
The Materials I use
​I use many layers of colour or graphite pencils to gradually and delicately fill the tooth of the paper. When I've finished drawing the base layers, I then focus on the direction of the hairs by gradually building them up. Each mark making process is done methodically from thick lines to tiny dots, creating the desired effect.
Both types of pencils allow me to have full control over the medium, enabling me to include the tiniest of details. When drawing with colour pencils I use a warm colour palette for the sun kissed areas and for the shadowed areas I use a cold colour palette.
With graphite pencils I use a blending stump, a tombow mono eraser and a putty eraser to create the portrait. For both colour and graphite pencil portraits where the subject has fur/hair I use an embellishing tool to gently press into the paper to create the vast majority of individual hairs.
Each pet and wildlife portrait can vary in timescale from 20hrs up to 100+ hours depending on the subject, size and complexity.