I make my pictures in a number of different ways, mostly, I begin with conventional drawing and painting, usually onto watercolour paper. Then I scan this into my computer and work on it, the final result is always in the form of a print. Sometimes I will hand decorate that print using watercolour, pastels, metallic inks and collage. Sometimes I will transform the print so completely with drawing and painting that it becomes a new piece.
I do absolutely feel that, whilst a piece of artwork is personal to the maker, there is a perfectly valid ‘story’ attached to the symbols/narrative by the observer. However, for anyone curious to know what reasons lie behind these pictures this is a short explanation about each gallery.

Animals
I have always felt a special relationship with the animal kingdoms, recognising the being within each animal form and acknowledging each as having their own spiritual journey such as we experience and having their valid thoughts and feelings, albeit different from our own. Animals have a great connection to the joy of life and exhibit an ability to simply ‘ be’ that is lovely to watch – for example birds riding thermals.
Watching and being with animals has shown me a delightful sense of humour in their behaviour and I feel so annoyed when they are regarded by the scientific community as having no ‘higher emotions’. That just means that they don’t know any.

I use the image of certain species in a symbolic way mostly and sometimes just decoratively. Horses represent freedom and strength, I am very fond of them and have had many horse-friends.
Dogs have been special to me all my life, they have always been, in my experience, gentle, steady and loving, even when that was not my human experience. I have known and loved many and am grateful to those who have lived with me for their support. Wolves are more the romantic side of dogs as they have their wild freedom
– I have had several companion wolfhounds and they are connected with wolves for me in my images.
Elephants bridge between wild and and tame – I have met several in India, where, of course, you can touch them and communicate with them and where they live useful and appreciated lives. The ones I have met have had a nice feel to them and those who worked with them treated them kindly and respectfully.
I am extremely fond of gulls and crows, birds often disliked by people but I love their bold and extravagant body language and the shape of them. The white birds that appear in my pictures are images of the pure sense of spirit and are no specific kind of bird. For the same sort of reason I include butterflies in pictures quite often.
Hares are wild and free, they represent, for me, an aspect of the beautiful British landscape and the folklore here. Whales are beautiful and free and perhaps serve as an oceanic version of hares in my mind. Big cats are beautiful and a little scary so they represent fears and sometimes longings and the fears connected there.

There are one or two pictures that have a narrative apart from that general explanation, for instance;
The White Cat’s Dream is a little story about a cat falling asleep on a picnic rug. He dreams of little white birds and the possibility of catching one but then the dream turns into a seagull, who is bigger than the cat appears.
Watching the oranges – once I had a pair of wolfhounds named Cai and Thor, they used to sometimes sit upright together watching something and I loved the way they looked together. Thor, unusually for a dog, really liked oranges and used to watch us eat them, hopefully. So here they are watching an orange tree, in case an orange
drops off.
Dreaming that We Fell is about that falling sensation that one sometimes has in a dream, a couple and their cats are all having the same dream.

Dreams
I have been calling some pictures dreams - in that a dream is a connection to another state of being, sometimes in dreams, we visit our other selves in other time/space areas. Many of my pictures are about that experience, about the multidimensional aspects of being, understood as taking place in the Now although interpreted as memories of past lives and journey toward future lives – the experiences and learning which I have chosen to bring into this life for further review, some things are better expressed as images, there being no words as accurate as colour and line.
Fire and Flood is a picture made for a friend who had written a book of poetry and whose emotional expression of experience was very much in tune with my own with regard to a woman’s path through life’s various difficulties to find a sense of self. Some of it’s images are also in other pictures in a series about other life experiences and the common thread that links them – survival of spiritual strength in difficult circumstances – sometimes literal ‘memories’ and sometimes symbolic: such as – Eden, Raven Rome, Bulldance, Agean, Voice of the Wind.
What Women Want is a wry look at the void between the way men and women express emotional needs and desires.
Dreaming that We Fell is about that falling sensation that one sometimes has in a dream, a couple and their cats are all having the same dream.

Abstract
The abstracts are entirely without narrative meaning, intended to create a feeling and draw attention to colour and texture for its own sake.

Mandalas
These are for the dual purpose of enjoying as a decorative pattern and for a meditative purpose. Each has the title word running through it on which one can focus and contemplate the meaning which it has for you personally, the words are woven into the patterns and may take a while to discover.
Painted Lady is named after the elusive butterfly and her face may be equally elusive at first.