About Jane
As a child I quite liked drawing animals, painting on stones and doodling like most of us but never really did much more. In my teens I would watch my father enjoy painting and drawing, may be seeing his work encouraged me to have a go, like my father I have no formal qualifications in art, however after I left school I did do an evening class in art to fill my spare time.
The next time I did anything arty was at the age of 27 when out of the blue I decided to paint a farmyard mural on the walls of ‘my soon to arrive’ daughter’s nursery. I set to on the walls working with the characters from the Usbourne books ‘The Farmyard Tales.’ With a mixture of emulsion and poster paints, three weeks later I had a room full of animals.
So then children came along, we got on with life as you do, building up your home, moving on to the next home, lots of renovations, painting with big brushes….and life goes on.
In 2004 we moved to New Zealand to begin our new life on the other side of the world, what an adventure we had, what an amazing, beautiful country full of wonderful people and stunning scenery. I was loving every moment of our new life, working on our lifestyle block of ten acres, life was great, we were lucky enough to have a bit of free time to explore our new location.
It was in New Zealand where my passion for art and appreciation our surroundings truly ignited.
Three years on we returned home to the UK, life went on very much as it did before, then with the children growing up, attending college, then university, it was finally time to paint.
I started to paint in 2011 when a online watercolour tutorial sparked my interest, this medium seemed like a good choice to fit in with my hectic home and work life.
My passion for painting flourished, then I found other mediums that I could not resist, pastels, acrylics, coloured pencils, Alcohol inks and more.
After many years of avoiding the pull of oils (even with my fathers old oil paint collection sitting in a box waiting to see the light of day) I just had to see for myself what all the fuss was about. Wow, I think I rather like this medium, I’m not producing many paintings in oils as yet, its very different, I’m still getting used to the process and the slow drying aspect of this medium. I’m a bit like a bull in a china shop, just charging in with the excitement and making a bit of a mess, paint on the canvas, paint on me, paint on my workbench, just everywhere, thank heavens for baby wipes, all said I think I’m hooked.
My inspiration comes from wildlife, nature, my travels and our beautiful surroundings that we often take for granted, from the sight of a fallen decaying tree where new life thrives, an old truck left to rust in a paddock, the sky high mountains with far reaching views, the rolling hills with the patchwork quilt of fields below, to the endless coastlines….
Whilst living overseas we realised just how much we missed the UK, its beautiful scenery and how easy it is to access these stunning locations.
I love living in the countryside, within minutes from my doorstep I can experience the fauna and flora on my walks, my head is always so full with ideas that often I do not know where to begin.
I desire to paint everything and anything that excites me, in various mediums and styles. I tend to absorb myself in detail, colour and textures re creating what I see, I crave to loosen up a little, to soften away the less significant aspects of the picture in front of me. I hope one day I will find ‘my style’ may be I have and I just don’t know it?
My Ongoing Challenge
I have a desire to re create my memories of places I have visited over the years, to build my own personal memory wall of art, its an ever increasing task as I continue to travel to new and wonderful places here in the UK and overseas. When I paint these special pieces of art for myself or for others, it gives me a great feeling of connection, finding myself smiling as I work knowing that the memories are brought to life to ponder over and reminisce.