I’m a painter who enjoys sketching and painting on location when it’s sunny and in my studio when it’s wild. As an artist I’m interested in line, pattern and colour found in nature, particularly seascapes and flora. My paintings range from representational across to the tipping point into abstraction, working in a range of mediums.
I enjoy working with oils, watercolour and acrylics. The former because if I’m caught out in a rain shower the painting doesn’t wash away. The latter because they dry fast, enabling me to work quickly, layer upon layer, building my way to a painting. The quick drying-time lends an urgency to the creation process, breathing vitality into the mark making. I like to think that energetically applied paint conveys the fast-changing weather and light conditions in Scotland, while fluid paint allowed to run creates a sense of the frequent rain. It’s a dance between still-wet and dry, deliberate and serendipitous, abstract and representational.
By looking repeatedly at particular locations, and painting the various moods of these, I aim to create layered paintings that contain multiple memories of a location or subject. Paintings not limited to what meets the eye at a finite moment, that tell different stories when you view them from a distance and up close. I thrive on returning to the same subjects time and again as there’s always something else I see or another way I might paint it.
In the last few years I have also been exploring the possibilities of painterly printmaking. Monotype portraits of my husband, Alistair, were exhibited in the 2024 Scottish Portrait Awards and 2025 Ironbridge Printmaking Competition.
WHERE TO SEE MY AVAILABLE PAINTINGS:
In my studio-gallery in Portsoy on a Saturday (11 to 3) or by arrangement (email me).
Member of Printmakers of Scotland
Painting tutor at Higham Hall in the Lake District, England
Exhibitions
2026
• Wee Print Exhibition, Printmakers of Scotland, Dunblane Museum and Gallery
• Secret Postcard Show 2026, The Old Lock Up Gallery, Cromford
• Portsoy, exhibition in my studio
• NEOS North East Open Studios
2025
• Celebration of Creativity, DM Artist Collective group exhibition, Footprint Gallery, Jackfield
• Secret Postcard Show 2025, The Old Lock Up Gallery, Cromford
• Ironbridge Fine Arts Printmaking Open 2025
• Edinburgh Macmillan Art Show (online)
2024
• Summer Group Exhibition, Milton Art Gallery, Banchory
Scottish Portrait Awards
2023
• Life Lines, online group exhibition with Fife Contemporary
• Colours, group exhibition Aberdeen Artists Society
• NEOS North East Open Studios
2022
• Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
• Edinburgh Macmillan Art Show
2019
• “Words” group exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
• Twitter Art charity exhibition in Edinburgh
• Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
2018
• “Fish” group exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
• Lochalsh Art Fair
• Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
2017
• “Colours of Spring” solo exhibition at Inchmore Gallery near Inverness
• Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
• Gallery6, Newark-on-Trent
2016
• “Interlude“: solo exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
• Spring/Summer Exhibition, Inchmore Gallery
• Winter exhibition, Inchmore Gallery
• Mixed exhibition at Old Pier Gallery, Broadford
• Group exhibition at Groam House
• Puffin Gallery, Benbecula
• Patchings Art Festival near Nottingham
• Exclusively Highlands at Cawdor Castle,
• Living North Christmas in York
• Country Living Christmas in Glasgow
2015
• Solo exhibition “Flow” at Skyeworks Gallery
• Mixed exhibition at Old Pier Gallery, Broadford
• Lochalsh Art Fair
• Winter Exhibition & CD Collection, Inchmore Gallery
• Strath Print Pictorial Arts Charity Calendar
• Home from the Hills charity exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
2014
• Solo exhibition “Edges“, Skyeworks Gallery
• Lochalsh Art Fair
2013
• Solo exhibition “Winding Down”, Skyeworks Gallery
• Lochalsh Art Fair
2012
• Solo exhibition “Moods of the Minch”, opening exhibition at Skyeworks Gallery
• Group exhibition “If You Go Down to the Woods Today” and
“New Artists, New Work” Inchmore Gallery
• Lochalsh Art Fair
• Strath Print Pictorial Arts Charity Calendar
2011
• New Artists, New Work ,Winter Exhibition, Inchmore Gallery
• Trees for Life Charity Exhibition, Out of the Blue, Edinburgh
• Skye Charity Art Auction, Sligachan Hotel
• New Artists, New Work, Inchmore Gallery
• Fish Exchange, Atlas Art Skye
• The Printmaker’s Proofs, Portree Library
Publications
2026
Portsoy (catalogue of work)
2023
Pebbles (catalogue of work)
2019
Never Still (catalogue of work)
Art Workbook: Colour (compilation of worksheets from my workshops)
2018
Think Like an Artist (collection of writing from my blog)
Art Workbook: 365 Word Prompts to Create a Daily Drawing Habit
2017
Catalogue: Moods of the Minch 2
Painter’s Pocket Muse
2016
Exhibition Catalogue: Interlude
2015
Exhibition Catalogue: Flow
Counting Sheep
2014
Exhibition Catalogue: Edges 2014
2013
Exhibition Catalgoue: Winding Down
Catalogue: Sheep Paintings
2012
Exhibition Catalogue: Moods of the Minch
WHEN did I write on Painting for About.com? It was for 12 years, from 2002 to 2014. To read my articles as I wrote them, use WayBackMachine.
Thank you for a mini vacation. I am in sw Miss. USA. I enjoy your photos and your musings on painting. I have learned from this. I am a goat farmer and want to paint my goats. I have started my learning and saw your sheep painting photo. It grabbed me. Thank you also for sharing your world.
Love your work. Saw it today at the gallery, on our first visit to Skye. Especially like your paintings of the Cuillins,( we walked from Sligachan yesterday)and also the pen & ink sketches.
How wonderful you have created a New Home with a Garden. I imagine the colour inspires you. Enjoying your posts etc. Thank you :-)