Drawing with Scissors at Parallax
I’M TAKING A NEW DEPARTURE next week in taking a stand at the Parallax Art Fair. It takes place at the Old Town Hall, on the Kings Rd in Chelsea, on Saturday 28th February and Sunday 1st March.
Art Studio
Articles about fine art and illustration projects, all of which relate to the art of the portrait silhouette in one form or another.
Jane Austen Silhouettes at One Aldwych
WHEN PEOPLE ASK when silhouettes were most popular I usually answer “think Jane Austen”. It conjures up the right period! So it seems appropriate that this Xmas season, as we celebrate her 250th birthday (she was born on 16th December 1775), has been so dominated by her presence.
Portraits of Rakugo
HERE’S AN ARTISTIC QUESTION: can I cut a portrait of storytelling in action? I don’t mean cutting a portrait of the story teller (I know I can do that) but somehow to capture the act of storytelling itself: the pace, mannerisms and energy of the storyteller?
Masked Portrait Paper Cuttings
THROUGHOUT LOCKDOWN the mask struck me as a potent symbol of those extraordinary times. I’ve always been fascinated by masks; Venetian masked balls are amongst my favourite kind of event to work at. Yet the masks we all had to wear during lockdown felt very different.
A Reluctant Paper Cutter
PAPER CUTTING is not what I do. Everybody assumes I love paper cutting, and given that most people meet me wielding scissors at a party it’s quite understandable. I do, after all cut paper! Despite this, until very recently, I’ve never regarded myself as a paper cutter. I’d like to explain what I mean by that.
Mays Barn 2020 Studio Catalogue
MY 2020 STUDIO CATALOGUE has now been launched, featuring paintings and drawings from last year. For me, 2019 was an interesting year. It started with a much-needed and long-overdue studio clearout, in which I simply got rid of most of the unsold work from the last twenty years to so.
Opening my Creative Space
MAY IS HERE, so I’m opening Mays Barn to exhibit a new series of silhouette paintings and prints. Should I invite Theresa May?
Should an Artist Recycle their Art?
YESTERDAY I spent the whole day recycling art……or at least preparing to. Can you give a painting or two a new home?
Mays Barn 2019 Studio Catalogue
HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE my 2019 studio catalogue has now been launched and you can download it here. It features a new set of paintings which I call “Internal Landscapes”
Caversham Arts Trail: Once a year I become a cat
ONCE A YEAR I become a cat. Well, it’s an acronym, of course. CAT stands for Caversham Arts Trail, which is the annual open-studio event for artists based in Caversham. The Caversham Arts Trail takes place over the middle two weekends of May.
Mays Barn: a silhouettist’s studio
IN EMMER GREEN, at the bottom of the garden of an unassuming 1920’s semi-detached house you’ll find Mays Barn. It was quite a find! I always tell people we bought the barn and the house came with it! But why is it there?
A Paper Anniversary Silhouette
ONE YEAR ON falls the paper anniversary. A little over a year ago I was booked to attend a wedding at the Savoy, London. It was a wonderful event and I cut some memorable silhouettes, including a three-minute cutting of one of the most complicated hats I’ve ever seen.
My Approach to Cutting Silhouettes of Buildings
TODAY, THE MAKING of silhouettes is synonymous with paper cutting. However, this was not always so, and silhouettes of the past were often created in wide variety of media, sometimes mixed together in unlikely ways.
Hollow-cut Life Studies
TAKING INSPIRATION FROM OLD SILHOUETTES I’ve been using the technique of hollow cutting during life-drawing sessions. My aim is to explore again the relationship between drawing and cutting, thinking about the different kinds of line an artist can make with pencil and with scissors.
The Empty Frames Project
THE IDEA OF HANGING EMPTY FRAMES on a gallery wall emerged from my work at events. Clients often suggest that it would be fun to arrange all the silhouettes on a wall and have people guess who they are. Doing this is easy enough (given an empty wall and a roll of sellotape). However, I quickly discovered that it looks
iPhone Drawings
NOW THAT Mastering Silhouettes is out of my hands I have some time to return to the studio and do some painting. My biggest inspiration so far this year has been the (very crowded) David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy, so I’ve been making iPhone drawings.