What's on My Walls and Why
When I began my painting journey and ventured into using paints on canvas I couldn't imagine for a moment that my art would be on any other walls but ours !
Our walls have now become a record of our travels.
The first "proper" painting I created to record happy memories was inspired by a photograph that my youngest son took in Portugal.
We had a lovely break and took a tour of the countryside where my son took some great photos including one of a wild meadow with poppies.
I often store images in my head of what I want to paint although these days I try to store them in a file !
It was some time later that I revisited the photos from our trip and decided to recreate the Poppy photo on canvas..
This work now hangs in our lounge and has done for many years .
A friend of mine loves looking at this and says she can imagine deer hiding in the trees at the back !
It's great when people really look at a painting and see so much in it.
In our dining room hangs a memory of a super relaxing holiday in St Lucia..
Its near a spot where we often had lunch and listened to the waves breaking on the rocks.
This is one of the few times that I have created the same work twice. My first painting was smaller and my husband suggested a wider version would look amazing on our wall.
Now as we sit at our table we are transported back to those sunny, chilled days.
We have another tropical memory on our kitchen wall.
I took many photographs of the stunning tropical gardens where we were staying., we were also lucky to see hummingbirds enjoying the flowers too!
The borders were full of lush plants in various shades of green with pops of colour from the exotic flowers.
The painting on the left began life as a small pen and watercolour piece .inspired by those borders.
Sometimes when I'm sketching I instantly know that I want to create that piece as a painting. I knew exactly where I was going to hang the art once created, I just needed to track down the right size canvas..
Canvas found I used black gesso for my base to really make the greens pop.
Now whenever I walk past this I remember those warm, tropical days walking through the lush gardens to the beach !
Next on the tour of our house takes us to our staircase.
Here I have one of my earliest abstract style works of the ocean, not of any where in particular, but a cumulation of thoughts and feelings.
I absolutely love this piece and would never part with it. The photograph doesn't really do it justice as is true of most art. There's nothing quite like seeing it in person!
The ocean is such a great inspiration with its ever changing colour palette and I never tire of looking at ocean artwork.
Many paintings are very therapeutic to look at and this is definitely one of those for me.
Along side this is an atmospheric work of a wild beach in New Zealand.
We visited this stunning country in 2003 but I still remember standing on that beach when I look at the painting.
We toured around the south island after visiting for a wedding and stayed in Greymouth before we visited Franz Josef Glacier. There was a big storm coming in, the sky was incredible and so dark with the sea pounding on the beach.
I painted this some time later from one of many photographs that I took on that trip.
The final work I am sharing here is what we see when we wake up.
A feng shui consultant told us its important to "wake up to something that inspires you", and this is it !
Its a memory of a very special place, heaven on earth, Kuramathi in the Maldives. I never dreamt that we would get to stay in such a tropical paradise and I'm so grateful that we did.
The painting is exactly what we saw when we woke in Kuramathi and we never get bored looking at it.
Not only does it bring back incredible memories it inspires us to keep going every day.
The big goal is to go back and who knows you just have to believe don't you ?
Please get in touch if you'd like any of your special memories recreated in a piece of art.