Watercolour and I go back a long way. I remember the feel of my first paint box - the reassuring weightiness and all the possibilities hidden in it, so neatly packaged up.  I was largely self taught, with direction from my Father (a brilliant amateur artist) and gradually built my skills over the years. Watercolour has a mind of it's own and always keeps you on your toes, regardless of how experienced you are with the medium.

Art has always been my happy place and I began receiving commissions for artwork while I was in the sixth form, and have never really stopped.  

 

I went on to study Fine Art (Painting) at Winchester School of Art 1998-2002, where I worked with oil paint in a photorealist style.

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Despite never losing my passion for the artistic process, it took a few exhibitions and some freelance illustration following my art degree to realise that the art world wasn't all it was cut out to be. I realised that using my work to help people in tangible ways was more important to me, and I retrained to become a qualified Occupational Therapist.

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I worked in the NHS for 10 years and one of my favourite elements of the work was running creative groups to improve wellbeing,  build confidence and increase social engagement. It was an excellent grounding in learning how to enable people to positively engage in an artistic process who would never ordinarily explore or celebrate their creative side.

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