A few years ago when I was going through a minimalist phase I did lots of simple pen and ink sketches, trying to capture faces, places and buildings in just a few black lines, by reducing everything back to its basic elements. Part of this project included a series of panoramic sketches I did of…
Category: Sketchbooks
Dadas at the fish market
I’ve been painting this picture in my head for months now. The Kivukoni Fish Market in Dar Es Salaam is always busy. Both inside and outside the market walls there are scores of people; inside fishermen and traders huddle together around the many different catches of the day, outside house dadas dressed in brightly printed…
Buying and Selling Bananas in Kenya
This is my latest painting, a watercolour of a group of women buying and selling bananas and mangoes at a street-side market in Kisii, a town in south-west Kenya. The painting was done from a quick sketch I did some months ago while travelling from Mwanza in Tanzania to Nairobi.
The Reveries of a Solitary Walker
Because I’ve lived in so many different places, I don’t have one specific place to go to when I need to recharge my batteries. Instead I have a routine or a ritual which usually makes me feel a bit better. This involves an early morning experience – a walk, cycle, run, or just a prolonged…
Art is not what you see, it is what you make others see.
I have been asked by art and craft company Patience Brewster to do an interview and to share some information about my life as an artist. Patience is an artist herself who designs handmade and hand painted Christmas ornaments. If you follow my blog, you will know that I am not a “proper” artist, in that I…
Rock City Paintings
A few weeks ago my husband and I took advantage of visiting grandparents to have a sneaky evening away without our three young children. Mark had previously won a night for two at a Tunza Lodge, a local beach resort. And when Bill and Joan came to stay, we decided to grab the…
A sketch of my dear old Dad, David.
Originally posted on Travels with my Art:
? A sketch of my dad, David. This is a sketch I did of my dad who died 25 years ago today – It feels like forever ago, a lifetime ago, I suppose it was. My dad died unexpectedly from a heart attack in April 1990. He had…
An encounter with the rockabilly of the bird world – the pied kingfisher.
Keeping up with my Easter Resolution of using my art sketchbooks more, I decided to tuck one in my pocket as I went for lunch with my family today. And was so chuffed I did, because at long last I had my first encounter with the beautiful water bird the pied kingfisher. While having lunch…
Easter Resolution – getting back to my sketchbooks.
Over the last few months I have been so horridly busy, both at work and at home looking after my three children, that I have barely had enough time to sleep, let alone sketch. So I have set myself an Easter Resolution of doing more art work, initially in my sketchbooks and later moving onto…
Celebrating the festive season in Tanzania and beyond.
This is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite time of year. Past Christmases and New Years have seen me dancing until dawn in Amsterdam, drinking champagne on the streets of Coimbra, sledging in Stockholm, having tea with a group of Bedouin women in Petra, visiting Sylvia Plath’s grave in West Yorkshire, raving in…
The Frangipani Tree.
nn The frangipani is one of my favourite trees with its heady scent and bright flowers being forever evocative of tropical climates I have experienced. I pass this one most days going into Mwanza town, it is just off Makongoro Road near the clock tower roundabout and every time I see it I want to…
