Moments as a Featured Artist…
As an artist posting online, I have had various moments that I am proud of when others notice my work and reach out to show their appreciation. This is a gallery of some of those moments.
The Peerless Corvid
Christmas week 2018 I painted a cheeky crow that was busy playing in the park. It was very cold, and light, and the winter sun on the crow’s feathers seemed to turn the bird blue. It seemed so bright that I chose to paint my corvid on Khadi cotton paper in very light, mineral-based watercolour paints from Peerless. The crow was noticed by the Peerless team, and I became the Featured Artist for the Peerless Instagram Christmas 2018 space.
“Thank you so much to the Peerless Watercolors Instagram page #peerlesswatercolors for my spot as featured artist for Christmas Day 2018 with this cheeky chappy, my very bright crow from the local park painted with Peerless Watercolors on Khadi rough watercolour paper, I feel incredibly honoured!” (The Fairfax Curator, 2018)
Coyote and Chipmunk
In March 2021 I printed and painted an old folk tale involving a Coyote that stole fire with advice from a Squirrel. The Squirrel became a Chipmunk in my hands, because why not? The painting was initially completed in acrylic and recycled papers and card, completed with Matisse-inspired animal cut-outs decorated in washed acrylics. The whole painting was then finished with digital embellishment and uploaded to Instagram. The crow was noticed by the team at The Coyote Centre in Maine, USA, and I became the Featured Artist for the Day for their charitable conservation work.
“Thank you so much to http://www.instagram.com/coyote_center/ for featuring Coyote and Chipmunk on their Instagram story today” (The Fairfax Curator, 2021)
Virtual Sketchwalk
In early 2021, as part of the FB Virtual Sketchwalk group, I attended a virtual sketchwalk to Moscow, Russia. This group consists of urban sketchers who struggle (for whatever reasons) to attend urban sketching gatherings in the real world. This can be for something as simple as time constraints. For me the limitations were both disability and ongoing covid restrictions. Similar to a non-virtual sketchwalk, the idea is to peruse the location, wander about freely, then sketch and/or paint places or points of your own choice. In a virtual sketchwalk, rather than plein air sketching on location, virtual media and holiday photographs from artists own sketchwalks are used as reference material. I was instantly fascinated by the images of St Basil the Blessed Cathedral in Moscow, such as the reference photograph provided here on the day.
I wanted to recreate this very colourful, bright, flamboyant building into my signature weird-emotional cartoonish style. I completed the sketch in black waterproof Micron Graphics pen 005 and then added the colours with Daniel Smith Watercolours mixed by hand. I intensified shadows with the dirty paint wash water, something I have a preference for in many paintings as I feel the colour is more like genuine shadows than paint is. To get the lightness and brightness, I mixed most of the colours from a core choice of a bright mineral-based teal blue.
Gaining notice for its lightness and brightness, this painting was made into the Facebook group banner for week commencing 28 March 2021.