When I first came across Louise's artwork, I was enthralled by the beauty and the clarity of her excellent drawings and paintings. Interestingly, she also makes decorative cakes as a work of art as well! `DWALKER1047 and I decided we would love to interview her, and thankfully she agreed to this.

Interview with Louise

1. How long have you been doing art?

I grew up painting and drawing and I always painted in my spare time, some oils and pastels but mostly drawing and miniature watercolour/gouache. I worked in commercial art after my degree course up until I was about 30 when I had kids. Since then I decorate cakes and do sugarcraft for a living as commercial art did not fit well with looking after my kids. I now paint as much as I can in my (very small amount of) spare time! I'd say I've been painting for 46 years and I'm 46years old!!

2. What, or who, got you started and influenced your work?

My mum! She gave up art at college to continue with music - I had to give up music to continue with art! And migraines - suffering from them I could call on my inner feelings to develop some of my abstract/fantasy pieces. I love a big range of artists work - cubism, surrealism, abstract, pop art, impressionism, photorealism . . . . Artists I admire include Turner, John Martin, Braque, Salvador Dali, Frank Frazetta, Patrick Woodroffe, Cezanne, Monet . . .that's quite a mix and I could go on!!

3. Do you have any formal training as an artist?

I failed my school exams (someone didn't like what I produced, I can think of no other reason!) I persuaded college to let me take up art 'A' level which I excelled at, then college took me into Graphic Design with a BA(hons) degree always with a bias towards illustration. The best part of that training was to have learnt the basics of drawing, the best grounding I feel any artist can have.

4. What software do you normally use for creating or preparing a work for display on the internet?

Photoshop on a Mac

5. Do you have a preference for the type of picture you like to create?

No. My mood takes me where I want to go at any given time. I follow it! But I mostly stick to watercolour now or drawing (pencil and ink)

6. Can you give a brief overview of the techniques you use?

In my watercolours, I work big, on heavy watercolour paper. I do a very minimal sketch before using masking fluid to mask out foreground elements of the piece. Then I use a big, clear water wash over the whole piece and work into it the colours, images and textures of my background, doing it repeatedly to build to the middle and foreground. This stage is the emotional part, I feel the mood of the painting, play with the paint and water, use salt, tissue, whatever comes to hand to manipulate the paint. I use tube watercolours to get the depth of colours and strength. I feel excited about doing it just writing about it!! Once dried, and the masking fluid is removed, I work into my foreground details be it dragons or flowers or anything else. This is the more graphic element, though these days I think the paintings that have a smaller concentration in this area are more pleasing - I used to have more of a tendency to work too much into these areas and becoming more spontaneous and less technical has always been my challenge. I do very occasionally use a little pencil or even ink in the final details but usually my paintings are completed just in watercolour, though I use various techniques along the way, splashing, scratching, salt etc.

7. What sort of things inspire your artwork?

I usually just get an overwhelming desire to paint or draw, like a need almost. I find the direction of my painting often inspired by my mood and imagination (and migraines!), sometimes just the way paint moves and appears on the paper, and nature. I might simply start with a particular set of colours in mind or an imaginary, probably very vague image in my head, but it's just a starting point and it evolves as the paint moves on the paper.

8. Could you pick out 3 of your most favorite images from your gallery and explain why you particularly like them?

Wow! Difficult as they come from such different places within me. Some I like not because I think they are any good but because of the space I was in when I painted them, anyway try these :-

'Daisies' This is quite an early painting of this style and I like it for it's freedom and lack of formal design and layout it was such a break away from my old style.

'Thistle' This isn't that big but I painted it in a beautiful place in Wales with very special memories and it's qualities of misty background and details in sharp focus in the foreground evoke so much of the atmosphere of the place. I feel gooey about this picture!! It's detail was very time-consuming!

'Firecracker' This is a favourite because of the way the dragon came about. Most of the painting was complete before I felt the dragon's presence, it was exciting to paint as I really didn't know what I would have at the end, I had no real image in my head at the start, which I quite often do have.

9. Do you have any advice for aspiring artists?

Learn to draw and keep drawing!! Let your imagination get a hold of you and run with it! Don't try to paint when the mood isn't right, it's soul-destroying and you'll never be satisfied with the results. Simply enjoy having fun with your medium(s) and don't worry about what other people think - I think it works best if you do it for yourself, if then someone else likes it too, that's an added bonus.

10. Do you have any future plans for diversifying your artwork?

Not really. I paint for my own enjoyment and if people like it and buy my paintings then that is an added bonus. I spent too long in the confines of Commercial Art and to be free of that now makes me never want to be in the position of painting to a brief or to deadlines or to try and satisfy a customer. My 'work' is now decorating cakes, which is my own business. I can enjoy a creative job but still give my painting total freedom, I paint only in my free time and under no obligations. I only sell a painting if I feel ready to let it go. My only concession is that I produce quite a few of my painting as greetings cards which I sell locally to family and friends. It was my daughter who persuaded me that I should join DA and show my art here.

11. Is there anything else you'd like to add about what you do?

The style of my painting now is vastly different to my earlier years! I felt I was 'conditioned' doing Graphic into very tight styles and I always tended to work small and detailed but without the emotion I now feel when painting. I always felt I had a more expressive, exciting style in me somewhere but struggled to access it. I have a son, born with a difficult medical condition. At some points over his early years, my emotions where all over the place. On one particularly bad occasion, about 10 years ago, I decided to go and paint. I was in a foul mood, probably depressed and angry. For the first time I took an enormous piece of paper and really threw the paint and water around. It was so liberating - it felt like I had just found myself. The picture hangs in my living room, I have never shared that particular picture but it is the inspiration to so many others.

A Selection From Louise's Small Gallery

<sub>`DWALKER1047 and *AnnaKirsten are inviting any one who has been interviewed by us both to add the following stamp to their journal/shoutboard in order to encourage viewers of people's home-pages to take a look at the articles that serve only to try to bring greater exposure to these artists...



Thank you.</sub>