About
I began drawing and painting in my childhood. My mom says I was always drawing when I was little, it helped keep me from getting bored. As I went through highschool I took art classes and maintained a sketchbook until I started university. Things got busy and I moved away to study and stopped making art for several years. Eventually I was bitten by the photo bug and bought myself a camera to take travelling. I would take my cameras with me everywhere, always looking for a great shot. After some time I fell in love with night photography, and would spend hours prowling the industrial areas, and downtown urban areas of Vancouver until the early hours of the morning.
That all came to an end when my first child was born. I found I didn’t have the energy to stay up late all the time when my sleep was so regularly interrupted. As a creative outlet I decided to start painting again. I had recently discovered all of the wonderful, free, educational videos produced by artist James Gurney, and I decided to try and paint everyday in the little Moleskine sketchbook I had. I chose watercolour as a medium because of its speed and seeing Gurney use it so masterfully in his videos. I kept up to the once a day schedule for a couple weeks before I inevitably fell off the bandwagon, but I vowed to continue painting and finish the sketchbook before the end of the year. I did, and started another sketchbook which I filled up in 7 months. It was around this time when my daughter was born and the pandemic struck forcing everyone to limit social contact. This left me with more time to paint in the evenings.
At the end of 2020 the company I had worked at for 4.5 years closed its doors in BC and I was out of a job. I decided to take some time off before looking for another full time job and focus more on my painting. I began painting not just in my sketchbooks, but on standalone paper to more easily be able to frame my artwork. At the same time I also bought myself a compact travel easel, which could easily fold up and fit into my backpack. My love of plein air painting was born. I enjoy the challenge and speed of painting in watercolour, and being out in the fresh air painting from life provides endless subjects and a chance to connect with the environment I’m painting.