I came across Shona's intriquing little water-colour pictures a while back, and found them so captivating and imaginative that I decided to delve a little further. Shona has her own website on which you can find a more extensive biography written by her, but here is an abridged version, which I hope you will enjoy, together with some samples of her uniquely styled artwork from her gallery.

A Short Biography From Shona

I’ve been drawing and painting since I was little. All kinds of arts and crafts interested me and I was at my happiest with a pack of felt tipped pens and the big sheets of computer print-out paper my dad brought home from work for me to draw on. But there have been long periods of my life when I haven’t painted at all. I really only began again in 2005 after almost 10 years of virtually never picking up a brush.

My first influences were probably the Disney artists – I loved those early films so much because the images looked so rich and warm. And also Charles Schulz who drew the Peanuts cartoons. I adored Snoopy and would draw him endlessly for myself and my classmates. Later as a teenager I discovered fantasy art, mainly from the covers of the books I liked to read, but it wasn’t until I found Patrick Woodroffe’s work that, I think, I really wanted to be a fantasy artist. So much of his work was so different from the Sci-Fi and ‘Sword and Sorcery’ type of art I was already familiar with and I love the quirkiness of some of his pieces.

In order to gain some further training after school, I did an Art Foundation course and went on to do a Higher National Diploma in Graphic Design.

Techniques

I work almost exclusively in watercolour. It’s always been my favourite medium. At the moment I’m enjoying creating a lot of small (7x5 inches) paintings but it depends on the subject matter to a large extent. I think that’s down to my graphics training – it makes you very aware not just of the image you want produce but also how it might sit on a page, what might be the best way to portray the idea, that kind of thing. So while most of my work at the moment follows a similar style and layout, I do sometimes try different techniques. For instance one piece I’ve been working on is designed to look like a stained glass window and is flat watercolour washes over a very detail pencil drawing.

I tend to use a lot of layers of paint when I’m working. I always paint from light to dark, putting the lightest washes down first and the most basic colours so that I can get a feel for the balance of the image then gradually darkening down and adding detail as I go. In the later stages of a painting I tend to use the paint quite thickly – sometimes I’ll mix a colour and wait for it to dry on the palette before adding just a small amount of water to it again.

I have PaintShop Pro8 and an A3 scanner but I’m utterly hopeless when it comes to graphics and art software. I can use the most basic functions to get my art into digital format but that’s about it. I also have a Canon IXUS60 digital camera for photographing pictures that are too big for the scanner.

Inspiration And Three Favourites

I'm inspired by so many things – films, novels, faery stories, folklore, mythology, nature, music, other people’s art. All other these things have inspired me at one time or another. Sometimes a single word can be enough to put an image in my head.

Here are three of my favourite images from my gallery...

The first one is ‘The Green Man’. The image of the Green Man has fascinated me since I was a teenager and I’ve tried to draw and paint him several times. This piece was something of a turning point for me. It was one of those pictures I started, then hated and put away after only a few hours work. It sat in my folio for nearly a year like that, and I got annoyed with myself every time I looked at it. Eventually I brought it out again and made myself work on it. This was the painting that taught me that I could get past that block in my head and finish a painting even when it initially looked like it wasn’t going to work.

The second one is ‘Nurdle and Stumpy Find a Door to the OutThere’. I love this one because it has such a simple palette. And it was small. In the past I had had a tendency to come up with complicated ideas for huge paintings that never got beyond the sketching stage so it was nice to realise that I could focus on a small image, make a small painting and have it work.

Thirdly, I think, ‘I am a Driving Hamster’. Well, this applies to all three of those ‘Top Gear’ paintings – I hope that’s not cheating – I was just really happy with the way they turned out. So often with a series of pictures it's easy to start off on a wave of enthusiasm only to find that the later pictures don’t work as well as you’d hoped which then spoils the whole set. I was so glad that didn’t happen with these. They just make me smile every time I look at them.

Suggestions For Aspiring Artists

I have to say practise as much as you can (I’d imagine everyone says that). I really found that when I started painting again after so many years – I made myself do a little every day and was amazed at how quickly I could get back into the ‘vibe’ after a while. Always try to have a detailed drawing to work from – if you work out your light and shade at the drawing stage it makes things much easier when you come to paint it. And finally - when you reach ‘that’ point it a painting – the point where you look at it and you hate it – keep going! I used to give up on so many pictures at that stage until I learned to ignore the doubts and continue working.

Now.. And Looking To The Future

No plans for diversification of my artwork as such. I’m just making art for myself so I tend to just let myself follow wherever my inspiration takes me. It’s hard to say what I might end up doing in the future.

As well as painting, I’ve written a couple of children’s stories I’m hoping to illustrate at some point. They were written quite a few years ago and I think I’m finally at the point with my painting where I think I should be able to create the images I want to go with them. I created a website for myself last year – The Wild Wood – which has a few more of my paintings and drawings, plus photos of the miniature teddy bears I used to make and sell a few years ago.

Other than that I just hope that people enjoy the pictures. I was always very nervous about showing my art to people in the past but everyone here on DA has been so positive, which has really given me confidence to continue.

Here are some treasures from Shona's Gallery

Make sure you read the captions for these...




_{(I have carried out a series of interviews, and hope to continue to do so. If you have never seen any of the previous ones, please click HERE and you will see links to all of them listed on my journal. (Some were carried out with `DWALKER1047 also.)}

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