Mystical Woods Studio

Exploring dreams, the fantastical and the slightly surreal are elements that keep me engaged with illustration, painting and sculpture. I enjoy creating visual stories with interesting characters both human and animal. The landscape and wildlife around Muskoka, Ontario, Canada where I live and Algonquin Park is an inspiration for this work and my l... andscape paintings. Much of my work in which I have explored the surreal has been in watercolours, a medium that can create atmospheric, moody effects. After sketching out characters I often create a background landscape with a loose wet in wet approach, exploring ways I can create light, clouds and mist to add interest to the painting. To paint the characters a more controlled technique of transparent glazes is needed. I love to add expressive lines with a brush or quill pen to create lost and found edges to give movement, feeling and depth. I also work in Acrylic for larger works such as murals and large wildlife canvases. The papier mache sculptures began as a project for Nuit Blanche North which has been the catalyst for other projects including marionettes and smaller, fantastical sculptures. After form is created with a wire armature, paper and glue strips are applied and dried in layers. Texture is often added after the final layer with paper clay and finally painted with house paint and acrylic. Masters of the past that inspire me are Chagall and Bruegel. I greatly admire illustrators from the Golden Age of Children's Book Illustration such as Arthur Rackham, Maxfield Parrish and Edmund Dulac. Illustrators of today that I love are Lisbeth Zwerger, Julie Vivas and Maurice Sendak to name a few. Music is also another influence as I play piano and sing and usually paint to classical music with its wordless, timeless, drama. I aspire to capture those rhythms, emotions and movement in my artwork. My art training began with a diploma in Interpretive Illustration at Sheridan Tech. I have worked as a wildlife mural artist and graphic designer at a Nature Centre, in ...Read More