IN THE STUDIO

In a studio full of light and overlooking her garden, Jane works at her finished watercolour paintings and highly detailed drawings using her sketches and a lifetime’s knowledge and observation of wildlife. Recently, she has produced pastels as well. Her subjects are birds, animals, insects and plants, and her acute observational skills and attention to detail, both in the subjects themselves and their surroundings, bringing every picture to life and making each one unique. All her pictures have a story behind them, based on personal experience.
She has amassed a large collection of sketches, drawings, pen and ink and watercolour illustrations and these are available for commercial use for a small fee.

Jane’s Own Comments

“ I have two very different ways of working. In the field, sketches are very loose unless I have a subject that is being very obliging and staying still for me. Mostly, the best you get is a few moments to register light, texture, colour and shape – no easy feat and so you have to decide what is important and what can be left out. In the studio, my style tightens up and I have the luxury of time. It can be a mixed blessing, as knowing when you are finished is more difficult. Outside, you are finished when your subject flies or runs off!

I adore detail, particularly in birds. They have an endless variety of patterns, tones, textures and colours in their feathers and I love the way that each individual feather combines with its neighbours to make different, subtle arrangements. I am not happy unless I can capture all of this.

Butterflies and moths are another favourite and I take the chance to draw and paint them whenever I can. Again, the more I look, the more detail I see. Consequently, I try to work in short bursts as it is quite intense, but sometimes when I get engrossed, time just becomes meaningless. Everything but the marks you are putting on the paper and the emerging painting or drawing vanishes and it is not until I try to move that I realise how long I have been sitting.

Watercolour is a superb medium for these subjects and I tend to use it in quite a strong fashion and for detailed drawings nothing beats a 3B pencil and a graphite stick.

I only paint what I have seen myself and that way I know it is a true representation of the natural world”.