In May 2019 I travelled to China and studied under Wang Xiao Yan, 王晓燕, a renowned artist in Anhui province specialising in the Flowers and Birds genre of Chinese brush painting. I spent five intensive days with her at her home in Wuhu. She gave me a thorough grounding in Chinese brush techniques and since then I have continued to build on my skills with fond memories of the time we spent together.
I have a special interest in Chinese brush painting and East Asian culture, which inspires my own art practice and my teaching. Often inspired by the natural world, I look for ways to combine Chinese brush techniques with other media.
I have been a freelance art tutor for more than 12 years. I have attended many art workshops and learnt from the patience and skill of others. Now it’s my turn to help others, the way others once helped me.
In 2025 I qualified as an Arts Therapy Practitioner because I wanted to understand the connection between art and well-being. My workshops are not just for learning techniques, they are designed to promote a peaceful mind.
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I became interested in Chinese art through the language; in 2015 I spent the month of September in Beijing as a student at the Hutong Chinese language school. Language lessons were in the morning and I was free to explore in the afternoons. I wandered round the 798 art district, visited parks, noticed patterns and emblems, and sketched koi fish in ponds. One of the tutors led a Chinese brush painting workshop one afternoon, and afterwards I asked her to write a shopping list in Chinese, so I could visit a local art supply store and buy some materials to take home …. I guess you could say that was the start of it all!
In April 2017, on a tour of tea gardens in several Chinese provinces, I happened to sit next to Wáng Xiǎo Yān (Dawn Swallow) at a corporate lunch hosted by a tea producer in Anhui province. By the end of the meal, we had exchanged contact details and the seed for another adventure was planted! If you'd like to read more about it, feel free to click on the button below:
Like Matisse, who once said: “Art should be something like a good armchair in which to rest from physical fatigue”, I create to rejuvenate.
I follow the Chinese maxim “observe and sketch, remember and paint”; most of my ideas start with a pencil and end with a brush.
I seek opportunities to fuse approaches in art that originate from contrasting cultures ; painting local Dorset landscapes with a nod to Asian-style composition and aesthetics, for instance.
.Art should be fun, and “good” art doesn’t have to be difficult or challenging. When I experiment and explore in art, I feel a sense of joy in “letting go”, and the end result is less important than the journey towards it.
I am not tied to one particular theme, but the over-arching inspiration is the natural world. At home or abroad, it’s a rich seam I can tap into in any way I like.
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