I’ve always been creative, and as a young person painting and drawing helped me to be content and more confident. I left school and developed a career in design, but continued to paint in my spare time and regularly sold commissions.
In early 2014 I took a chance and gave up my full-time design job to pursue my passion of painting. We converted an old brick shed at the bottom of the garden into a modest studio and I started painting more seriously. In the last four years I’ve become a selling artist. Selling through my studio, website http://www.canalsideart.wordpress.com and local shops.
Life drawing is a passion and vital to my creative practice, so I organised small life drawing sessions from my studio, and for the past 2.5 years I have been involved in running a life drawing workshop from our local Heritage Centre: https://canalsideheritagecentre.org.uk/whats-on/events/03/10/2018/groups/lifedrawing- group.
My work falls into a few categories; local landscapes, Nottinghamshire culture, street scenes, and wildlife. I paint mainly in Oils or Acrylics and I’ve lately been experimenting with more texture and mixed media on a larger scale.
In late 2017 I started to notice weakness in my right hand and slight changes in my dexterity and movement. In early 2018 I went to my GP and I was referred to the Neurology dept. In June 2018 I got the extremely unexpected news that at the age of 47 I have young onset Parkinson’s disease. I got the formal diagnosis on September 12th. This website is all about what I do next with my creative practice, and how I learn to paint with Parkinson’s disease or what I call “Mr P”.
In the UK, there are less than 48 per 100,000 women (under 50-years-old) living with the condition (Parkinson’s UK). So, as I’m a relatively rare thing – a 47-year-old, female artist with Parkinson’s, I’d like to raise awareness of the condition and what it means to me. This is my online space to record, explore and share my creative practice and the effect (positive and negative) the disease has on my creative work.
