Welcome
I love trees, forests and woods. I love rivers and estuaries, the slow, calming flow of water. I love blackbird song and nightjars, gawky herring gulls, tawny owls and deer. I love immersing myself in the greens and textures, the sounds and scents of the natural world; earth, rock and bone.
I love moving and dancing beneath the sky.
I love quiet, secret places. I love dusk and dawn, night and the moon in all its phases. I love leaflitter and beetles and dew, night dreaming and day dreaming. I love losing myself in the intricacies of my illustrated worlds. If I can’t go to the woods, I create them.
Many years ago I went to university to study zoology. Inspired by David Attenborough’s wildlife documentaries, I wrote to him and he wrote back, suggesting I study zoology. If I wanted to spend time in the natural world and ‘do something useful’, zoology seemed like one of the good options available at the time. But although I’m curious, I don’t make a good scientist; I always want to break away from logical thinking, data collection, measurements. I started drawing – and I’ve kept that going ever since.
Much later, I did a part time foundation course in art. I thought that artists had to paint. I was – and still am – a lousy painter. Really I should have focused on illustration or installation or something other than painting. So I became a self taught illustrator – it’s the thing I do most of in the art line – and I’m happy when I am conjuring up detailed scenes inspired by my love of nature, dreams, stories and myths. My illustrations come from an ‘imaginary forest’ inside me, nurtured by time spent in wild and natural places – I’m not really one for sketching or life drawing.
Quite recently, nature writing has come to me. I’ve written a diary since the age of 13, so I’m used to putting pen to paper. But, as the flourishing of nature writing took off ten or 15 years ago, I felt very drawn to writing about my connection to the natural world. Here is where I draw on my direct experience and observation. Although I don’t write a lot now, like dance and movement, it is important to me.
“Even if you are a small forest surviving off of moon alone, your light is extraordinary.”
Nayyirah Waheed
