FAQs
How old are you?
I was born in 1976!
Where do you live?
I currently live in Perth, Western Australia, the most isolated city in the world! I was born and raised here but I have also lived in Melbourne (5 years), the United Kingdom (just over a year) and Ireland (over 10 years).
What do you like to draw/paint?
My favourite things to draw are faces particularly girls/women; and birds. I love Disney animated films as a kid and used to draw The Little Mermaid all the time, hence my obsession with faces. And birds…well, they are so beautiful, amazing, intricate things and I just love them. My son got us all into bird-watching when we lived in Ireland so that made me want to draw & paint them. My favourite bird is probably the blue-tit.
What paint supplies do you use?
I started with Cotman watercolours, moved onto Windsor Newton Artist watercolours and now mainly use my 48 pan Schminke watercolour set which I love. I also have quite a few Daniel Smith tubes of watercolour too now and Dr. Ph Martin’s radiant concentrated watercolour set. I love Caran D’ache neo-colour II watercolour crayons, they are amazing! My favourite colour pencils are Prismacolour but I also use Lyra & Derwent watercolour pencils. As to everything else, whatever I have at hand (I’ve collected loads over the years!!). Paper: Arches cold-pressed, Cotman watercolour paper….whatever I can get my hands on that’s good quality, I prefer slightly rougher texture but not too rough.
What do you use for textile collage?
I usually use plain calico as a base, or plain cotton canvas fabric or a linen blend. Sometimes I stabilise it with an iron-on interfacing. I usually paint my backgrounds with watercolour, crayon or even watered-down acrylic. I collage with a variety of fabrics, I love texture so lace, felt, tweed, ribbon etc. I sew it together on my machine with a free-motion/quilting embroidery foot and then hand-stitch embellishments. Voilà
What sewing machine do you use?
I love Janome machines. My current machine is Janome Atelier 6. I love it!