How I Got Started as an Artist

This watercolour sketch of a cottage belonging to some friends in Scotland was pretty much the beginning of my journey back into painting in 2023. I’d been doing simple drawings and doodles for a long time digitally for greeting cards but really wanted to try my hand with actual paint - for the first time since I'd done art at school.

I started playing around with some watercolours I’d received as a gift a while back, mostly simple flowers or projects copied from elsewhere, but I hadn’t really painted anything of my own.

Our friends invited us to come and stay with them in Scotland and they lived in this gorgeous little cottage in the middle of nowhere (they were lucky I left, I was tempted to stay forever…) I took a few photos and when we got back I decided to try and paint it onto a postcard to send as a thank you.

The sketch is a mixture of ink pen and watercolours and I was really pleased with how it came out. It really encouraged me to experiment more and try painting new subject matter.

Since then I’ve painted so many different things in a range of different materials and in a myriad of different styles. It took me a while to figure out what I like to paint and how, and even now I'm still experimenting and evolving. But this little postcard sized watercolour sketch of a cottage painted with a simple watercolour pan set will always remind me of when I got started and I love it for that…

If you found this interesting and would like to know more about the artist behind the art (i.e. me!), take a look here...