Its been two weeks since I moved out from Aberystwyth and stepping into my routine of painting. A life of painting, my ultimate dream!

To make the transition from my studies in art to a profitable career, I enrolled in ‘Business Start up week’ at the University. I was surrounded by people of all departments of the University determined to develop their ideas into businesses, and unsurprisingly, I wasn’t the only art student there. It was a really useful week of understanding key aspects of planning, selling products, dealing with people, managing finances and developing strategies for success. Throughout the sessions, I thought about the words of advice and information given and overall, I had a realistic perspective towards making the right moves in my career and planning achievable goals.

Whenever I returned home to Gloucestershire from living in Aberystwyth I was always overwhelmed by the richness of colour and lush textures of the garden and fields. Our apple tree was laden with blossom, only for a very short time, so I took lots of photographs of the beautifully delicate leaves and translucent petals. This was a water-soluble graphite drawing. I’ve come to enjoy the really deep, rich tones I can get out of a water-soluble graphite than a regular graphite (and it’s less prone to smudging).

Naturally, I began a painting from the drawing since I felt the composition was interesting for me. This is still in progress, I am making many more layers of thin paint to describe the curve and fall of the petals.

Our beautiful Jaffa is old enough for walks now, so I take the three labradors for walks together in the fields (this is him above), which are absolutely teeming with wildflowers. I’m overwhelmed and inspired every day. My ‘walking’ sketchbook, which goes with me to document all my walks through the countryside, now has lots of botanical studies of the wildflowers I find. I now have a few books in my collection to identify them.

I’m interested in the randomness of nature with these wildflowers. They make such beautiful compositions, I can sit at the same spot and I find that my line of interest is difficult to pin down because there is so much to absorb! My photographs help me discover how I interpret them in paint.

These pink orchids are stunning, they were photographed in an organic field just down the end of the road from me. So I try not to step on them!

I have two paintings of wildflowers on the go now, this is a detail of my favourite so far that will be on sale tomorrow…hurrah! Yes its been a late night for me as its been an evening of preparing things and loading up the car for the Stroud Valleys Artspace ‘Arty Brum Booty’ tomorrow! It will be the first time I’ve contributed to the SVA, despite being a member for a while, and I’m really excited to meet some fellow art lovers and artists and get some of my work out there. My stall will be laden with lots of artwork from over the past few years and some of my needle felting creations, so I’m looking forward to having an eclectic stall, which should suit the nature of the event.