I have a background in nursing, from 18 to 48 years of age. At this time I had an opportunity to live in India for 3 years, experience not to be missed! It was during this time I started to paint, inspired by the colour and liveliness of Indian life. Painting in acrylic and oil I worked alongside an Indian Artist who taught me how to create the images I wanted to make.
When I returned to England, I wanted to carry on with art rather than nursing, and enrolled for a foundation course in Ipswich. It was here that I discovered a love for print making, and shortly after joined Sudbourne Park Printmakers Cooperative.
I completed the Curwen Centre Certificate in Printmaking in 2019, which is an assessed course (the assessors being Stanley Jones, Master Printmaker and Cloe Cheese, Associate Lecturer, Camberwell school of art) which has enabled me to expand my knowledge of various print making techniques, enabling my practice to become more experimental and combine techniques to create more complex work.
I am now currently studying for an M.A. in Fine Art at Norwich University Of The Arts (NUA).
I am inspired by the living form,and try to keep my drawings fluid by attending life drawing classes regularly. I run a smallholding, where I have a variety of animals who are a constant inspiration to me. I love wildlife and down on the farm there is no shortage of this either!
I love to try to catch the personality and movement of the animals in my drawings and prints.
I start my process with drawings and photo's, then play with the image to find the essence of what I wish to communicate. The printing process can start from there, either in wood cutting, etching or collagraph.
When working with wood I mainly construct my image through a process called reduction, which can take anything from 3-6 weeks to complete, adding a new layer of colour each time the wood is cut back.
I love to make images from dry point etching, as this is very close to the drawn image, and can display the energy of the subject freely. I have enjoyed discovering mark making possibilities in this medium, including lego bricks, and sand paper to name just two items I have used.
When etching on copper, I like to use soft ground to draw into, as this again gives a freedom of line to be expressive. However using both hard and soft ground in an image can give a very interesting result of formal and loose expressive lines. I am working on developing my work along these lines.
During my course I have discovered a love for screen printing, a process that has boundless possibilities for image making. I am excited to see where this takes me in the future, as I continue to add to my experience and techniques.
Find more of my work on
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ChapelFarmArtStudio
or
https://www.artfinder.com/art/sort-best_match/paginate-60/q-gill%20bedson/#/