Drawing Places

I am delighted to have received funding from the Ards & North Down Borough Council's Individual Artist Grant again this year.

My art has been on a developmental journey in the past 3 years, stemming from a renewed love of sketching out in the open.  It led me to more abstract work, particularly pushing my use of lines, shape and colour in my paintings, which led to me learning to screen print last year  to help me make bolder, simpler images based on my drawings.

This year, I applied for money to facilitate mentoring support, to decide where to go with it all now that I want to settle in to a new body of work.  I had approached artist Sally O'Dowd after a mutual contact suggested it would be a good mentoring fit, and am excited that it's all come together.  Sally's work is drawings-based, and she has been commissioned by various organisations to capture events and venues, as well as her own socially-conscious projects. 

My favourite thing about Sally's art is that the drawings are the work. Often, after producing several bits of studio art from one of my sketches,  I'll be pleased with the outcome but it will still be the original drawing that I want to look at the most.

So after our initial studio visit and a long chat, I'm excited to have landed on a project to work on.

It's largely drawing-based, focusing on places, not necessarily landscapes, where I have found myself spending a lot of time in the first 4 years of my son's life. I intend to translate a selection of the drawings in to a series of screen prints as well. It's an idea that I have submitted and had rejected from a couple of programmes, and I always thought it was something that I would have to make, as a commentary of how issues surrounding parenthood and childcare affect the identity and careers of artist mothers.  Dads too, but I'm not speaking for them!

Now that life is moving on to the next stage, and I have the luxury of being employed and free to make the art for myself, I've decided to complete the project now before it's too late to feel relevant.

I've been on holiday recently and have come back refreshed and ready to crack on.  Watch this space!

 A recent screen print, on show at Seacourt Printmaking Workshop until 3rd July.

Drawing sheet from Skippingstone Beach sketch walk.

Sketching at Sea Bangor Festival