I have been working with glass for about 30 years, I love the colours and the textures that glass provides, and the long history that accompanies it. I like the structure that the making of stained glass gives me, but at the same time I am always looking for ways to push boundaries. The formal design and illustration training I have gives me a background discipline of drawing that underpins everything that I create.
I attended a short course in Stained Glass at Broadland District Council Training Services, I have a Graphic Design/Illustration BA (Hons)from Norwich University College of the Arts and an MA in Sequential Design/Illustration from the University of Brighton.
Texture, contrast and colour are things that inspire me, whatever medium I am working in. I enjoy putting colours and textures of glass together on the lightbox, and I like to contrast colours, in glass and in illustration. I design each glass piece by making loads of thumbnail drawings in a sketchbook. I make them using the copper foil stained glass technique developed originally by Louis Comfort Tiffany in the 19th century. This gives me a flexibility with the forms my work takes and allows me to take liberties with the objects I include. I make decorative glass landscapes and beach scenes using a collage of found items from the local beaches and semi-precious stones. I put together transparent textured glass, shells and stones with different levels of translucence because I love the contrasts in colour and texture. The layers build up to a sculptural landscape in miniature. I have begun adding found objects to my glass pieces like china and bottle tops as a way of adding another dimension.
I use a kind of wet scraffito technique for my illustrations. I cover the whole piece with acrylic colour, draw the lettering, prime my surface and paint around the letters. Then I smear a liberal coating of oil bar on the dry primer, scraping it off using sticks, rags, blades and my fingers to create the textures and contrasts.
Working in ceramics is a natural progression from glass and illustration for me. Again my preoccupation is with colour and texture, using everyday objects to create sea like textures. I use copper, manganese and cobalt oxides to recreate the ever changing colours of the seascape.
Here is a link to a short interview for W.art with a little more information about how I work.