I am a colourist and an intuitive painter. I make optimistic paintings inspired by the natural world, travel memories and my imagination. I deliberately aim to make my paintings the colour burst in the room. My work is distinguished by strongly contrasting colours and bold mark making, sprinkled liberally with magic dust. Recurring themes include tropical imagery — particularly palm trees and rainforests — self-styled “Happy Trees,” imaginary meadows and paintings inspired by my travels.
Whenever I travel, I take a concertina sketchbook to record my journey and the muscle memory from these paintings informs my work back in the studio. Although my painting style is intuitive, and paintings are made via an ongoing conversation with the canvas in a constant adding-and-editing process, observation from life does play a part as a memory stimulus.
Over the years, I have worked with galleries, taken part in art trails, and organised exhibitions with friends and solo shows in venues in my home city of Bristol. I have always painted and, about six years ago, took the plunge to leave my day job in media relations to paint full time. Since then, I’ve appeared on a TV programme on BBC 2 called Home Is Where the Art Is; had my art featured at the head office of my local water utility company, Bristol Water, and on their vehicles; painted a life-sized sculpture of a unicorn for a public art project; and received international media attention and sold my work to buyers all over the world.
I love the fact that my daily “commute” is a short 10-step walk from my back door to the shed studio in my garden. Having a dedicated space to paint is so wonderful and I have made my studio a distinctive part of my brand presence.
My shed is an off-the-peg 12-feet-by-8-feet garden building from Dunster House in the U.K. I love the design of the shed — it fits neatly into a corner of my small city garden and has five generous double-glazed windows, making it a perfect light space for painting.
The studio was erected in the garden about 10 99 years ago, and for a while, it was painted a tasteful garden white colour. One morning on a whim, I decided to decorate the borders around the windows and the doors. I had not made a big plan to decorate the entire exterior, but it became a bit of a project that grew over a number of weeks. I chose a bright blue colour as the base and then added marks and symbols that worked within the small spaces around the windows.
The larger space on one side of the shed has a huge Happy Tree, and became the largest painting from a series that is ongoing in my work. I am inspired by natural shapes and symbols, and the decorations on the shed reflect many of my inspirations.
Entering the Shed of the Year competition was also an impulse — I fired off an entry one morning and sent it with a few pictures without much thought. Shed of the Year is a very quirky and British competition that has been running for many years and has become popular over time, and I didn’t really think I had any chance of winning. Lots of people make incredible custom-built sheds that are used for all kinds of purposes — from places to relax and garden pub sheds, to gyms, libraries and places for collections or myriad themes.
It was just after doing this, and the sensational amount of positivity that the project was enjoying on social media, that I decided to go for it and galvanise interest. It is true that many artists work from shed studios in their gardens (and my shed was not unique in that respect), but few artists had seen the marketing potential of making their shed their brand.
I had early on bought the domain name artistintheshed, and also reserved this name on social media platforms. For some time, I did agonise over whether to use my name as my brand as an artist but decided that actually what might distinguish me further was to make my studio and my practice one and the same.
This decision paid dividends and, although not immediately apparent, word spread much faster than if I had relied solely on my name to promote the paintings I was creating. I still have reservations about this decision, but on balance it has made my little brand quite distinctive and helped me to grow a reasonable social media following. All artists know that this is a vital element in marketing and reaching a wider audience to sell their work.
Prior to having the shed studio, I made art all over the place: on the dining room table, the floor, on an easel in the garden, and in sketchbooks on my travels. I still do this, but the wonderful thing about having a dedicated space is not having to tidy away at the end of a painting session.
Organisation is absolutely key when working in a small space and editing down what is really essential is an ongoing thing. It is important to feel that there is space to move around and to avoid creating too much clutter. Storage is important, but I have found that too much storage just means that unused art supplies get forgotten and take up precious space. From time to time, I donate unused supplies to an art club that my daughter runs in a local community centre.
I have put up shelves for all of my favourite paints so it’s easy to find the colours I need. These shelves are positioned next to my main painting table where I sit to make smallish works on paper. All I need to do is reach up for the colours of my choice and I find that this works well for me. I also have some storage cubes from Ikea that are perfect for housing small cradled panels and boards.
Vintage finds are also much in evidence. An old 1950s kitchen cupboard has recently been decorated with colours and symbols reflecting some of the shapes used on the shed walls. This houses my sketching and printmaking supplies.
A scuffed oak table is both a useful dumping ground and a good space for photographing and varnishing finished paintings. The biggest problem I have is finding storage space for larger paintings when I’m working on a new collection.
Like most artists, I don’t sell everything (I wish), so my solution to having too many paintings building up is to simply gesso over and reuse the surface. Letting go of old work used to be agonising, but over time I have learned to resist hanging on to work forever. In art practices, I feel we are always moving forward, and clinging to the past through accumulating too many unsold paintings is, in my view, counterproductive to creativity (as well as cluttering up our workspaces).
Smaller paintings are easier to store. I recently added some small display shelves from Ikea for 30-centimeter-by-30-centimeter paintings. I know these will sell eventually because they are in an affordable price bracket.
It’s also inspiring to have colourful work hanging up. Paintings on the wall sometimes act as prompts, reminding me of what does and doesn’t work, although mostly I let each new painting start its own conversation on the canvas.
This year I redid The 100 Day Project. I painted 100 finished A3 paintings in 100 days. I like to challenge myself and, although unlikely to repeat this exercise, doing 100 projects is a disciplined approach that enables a significant body of work to be created.
My future ambitions include making my own online course. I have made inroads into learning the process through participating in a collective course as a teacher with Tamara Laporte for Kaleidoscope 2024. This has helped me to gain the skills and confidence to launch my own course. I also want to take some time to go bigger with my work.
I’ve learned that being happy as an artist is not all about selling, even though this is an essential element for a practice to thrive. If you are not careful, you can end up responding to market demand entirely and this is not the answer to creative joy — and I have found that this can result in burnout. Making time to play, explore and make work that makes you happy ultimately brings more people along with you. The work you create is better as a result of maintaining artistic freedom in a time when it is too easy to get pulled in the direction of always pleasing a perceived customer base.
I have learned to guard my creative boundaries carefully, but I am very lucky to have worked with some wonderful customers who have trusted me to create bespoke commissioned paintings.
I am a colourist and an intuitive painter. I make optimistic paintings inspired by the natural world, travel memories and my imagination. I deliberately aim to make my paintings the colour burst in the room. My work is distinguished by strongly contrasting colours and bold mark making, sprinkled liberally with magic dust. Recurring themes include tropical imagery — particularly palm trees and rainforests — self-styled “Happy Trees,” imaginary meadows and paintings inspired by my travels.
Whenever I travel, I take a concertina sketchbook to record my journey and the muscle memory from these paintings informs my work back in the studio. Although my painting style is intuitive, and paintings are made via an ongoing conversation with the canvas in a constant adding-and-editing process, observation from life does play a part as a memory stimulus.
Over the years, I have worked with galleries, taken part in art trails, and organised exhibitions with friends and solo shows in venues in my home city of Bristol. I have always painted and, about six years ago, took the plunge to leave my day job in media relations to paint full time. Since then, I’ve appeared on a TV programme on BBC 2 called Home Is Where the Art Is; had my art featured at the head office of my local water utility company, Bristol Water, and on their vehicles; painted a life-sized sculpture of a unicorn for a public art project; and received international media attention and sold my work to buyers all over the world.
I love the fact that my daily “commute” is a short 10-step walk from my back door to the shed studio in my garden. Having a dedicated space to paint is so wonderful and I have made my studio a distinctive part of my brand presence.
My shed is an off-the-peg 12-feet-by-8-feet garden building from Dunster House in the U.K. I love the design of the shed — it fits neatly into a corner of my small city garden and has five generous double-glazed windows, making it a perfect light space for painting.
The studio was erected in the garden about 10 99 years ago, and for a while, it was painted a tasteful garden white colour. One morning on a whim, I decided to decorate the borders around the windows and the doors. I had not made a big plan to decorate the entire exterior, but it became a bit of a project that grew over a number of weeks. I chose a bright blue colour as the base and then added marks and symbols that worked within the small spaces around the windows.
The larger space on one side of the shed has a huge Happy Tree, and became the largest painting from a series that is ongoing in my work. I am inspired by natural shapes and symbols, and the decorations on the shed reflect many of my inspirations.
Entering the Shed of the Year competition was also an impulse — I fired off an entry one morning and sent it with a few pictures without much thought. Shed of the Year is a very quirky and British competition that has been running for many years and has become popular over time, and I didn’t really think I had any chance of winning. Lots of people make incredible custom-built sheds that are used for all kinds of purposes — from places to relax and garden pub sheds, to gyms, libraries and places for collections or myriad themes.
It was just after doing this, and the sensational amount of positivity that the project was enjoying on social media, that I decided to go for it and galvanise interest. It is true that many artists work from shed studios in their gardens (and my shed was not unique in that respect), but few artists had seen the marketing potential of making their shed their brand.
I had early on bought the domain name artistintheshed, and also reserved this name on social media platforms. For some time, I did agonise over whether to use my name as my brand as an artist but decided that actually what might distinguish me further was to make my studio and my practice one and the same.
This decision paid dividends and, although not immediately apparent, word spread much faster than if I had relied solely on my name to promote the paintings I was creating. I still have reservations about this decision, but on balance it has made my little brand quite distinctive and helped me to grow a reasonable social media following. All artists know that this is a vital element in marketing and reaching a wider audience to sell their work.
Prior to having the shed studio, I made art all over the place: on the dining room table, the floor, on an easel in the garden, and in sketchbooks on my travels. I still do this, but the wonderful thing about having a dedicated space is not having to tidy away at the end of a painting session.
Organisation is absolutely key when working in a small space and editing down what is really essential is an ongoing thing. It is important to feel that there is space to move around and to avoid creating too much clutter. Storage is important, but I have found that too much storage just means that unused art supplies get forgotten and take up precious space. From time to time, I donate unused supplies to an art club that my daughter runs in a local community centre.
I have put up shelves for all of my favourite paints so it’s easy to find the colours I need. These shelves are positioned next to my main painting table where I sit to make smallish works on paper. All I need to do is reach up for the colours of my choice and I find that this works well for me. I also have some storage cubes from Ikea that are perfect for housing small cradled panels and boards.
Vintage finds are also much in evidence. An old 1950s kitchen cupboard has recently been decorated with colours and symbols reflecting some of the shapes used on the shed walls. This houses my sketching and printmaking supplies.
A scuffed oak table is both a useful dumping ground and a good space for photographing and varnishing finished paintings. The biggest problem I have is finding storage space for larger paintings when I’m working on a new collection.
Like most artists, I don’t sell everything (I wish), so my solution to having too many paintings building up is to simply gesso over and reuse the surface. Letting go of old work used to be agonising, but over time I have learned to resist hanging on to work forever. In art practices, I feel we are always moving forward, and clinging to the past through accumulating too many unsold paintings is, in my view, counterproductive to creativity (as well as cluttering up our workspaces).
Smaller paintings are easier to store. I recently added some small display shelves from Ikea for 30-centimeter-by-30-centimeter paintings. I know these will sell eventually because they are in an affordable price bracket.
It’s also inspiring to have colourful work hanging up. Paintings on the wall sometimes act as prompts, reminding me of what does and doesn’t work, although mostly I let each new painting start its own conversation on the canvas.
This year I redid The 100 Day Project. I painted 100 finished A3 paintings in 100 days. I like to challenge myself and, although unlikely to repeat this exercise, doing 100 projects is a disciplined approach that enables a significant body of work to be created.
My future ambitions include making my own online course. I have made inroads into learning the process through participating in a collective course as a teacher with Tamara Laporte for Kaleidoscope 2024. This has helped me to gain the skills and confidence to launch my own course. I also want to take some time to go bigger with my work.
I’ve learned that being happy as an artist is not all about selling, even though this is an essential element for a practice to thrive. If you are not careful, you can end up responding to market demand entirely and this is not the answer to creative joy — and I have found that this can result in burnout. Making time to play, explore and make work that makes you happy ultimately brings more people along with you. The work you create is better as a result of maintaining artistic freedom in a time when it is too easy to get pulled in the direction of always pleasing a perceived customer base.
I have learned to guard my creative boundaries carefully, but I am very lucky to have worked with some wonderful customers who have trusted me to create bespoke commissioned paintings.
