About The Artist

Having embraced a figurative style for many years, post Covid Melanie has been experimenting with colour and semi-abstraction, moving towards a more suggestive approach, painting the feelings invoked by her surroundings. Walking and sketching in the landscape to soak up the atmosphere and observe the changing light, before returning to the Studio to capture the essence of the experience in paint.

Working mainly in oils, she is available for commissioned work, but specializes in landscapes and coastal views of locations personal to her clients rather than portrait work.

Success with Oils at Dedham Hall, Suffolk

Art Group Workshops & Demonstrations

If you would like to invite me to your art group, I offer both painting demonstrations and workshops tailored to your requirements.

Please email me or take a look at the Art Groups and Societies page on my website where you will find a host of ideas.

Some examples of Workshops & Demonstrations I have done in recent years include:

Big Skies over the North Downs - Oils: Let me show you hove to capture skies and clouds on a big scale. Working fast and loose to create a lively painting and incorporating impasto medium for the foreground downland.

Seascapes - Oils: I love painting seascapes and beaches. Working from sketches and photographs to create an atmospheric beach scene under a large open sky, incorporating figures or boats to give a sense of scale and interest.

How to Paint Horses - Gouache, Oils or Oil Pastels: I painted horses as a child, not being very good at riding them! In this demonstration I show how to get the proportions right for both a head and whole horse before moving on to paint a horse head portrait or a whole one in a simple landscape during the second half of the demonstration.

Interpreting Photographs - Gouache, Oils, Mixed Media or Oil Pastels: Many of us paint from photographs. During this demonstration I show you how to use several images to create a planning sketch. Using this sketch with the supporting images to then create a finished painting. If you wish, I am happy to use photographs supplied by the group, unseen by me in advance.

Use those Sketches! - Gouache, Oils, Mixed Media: Taking ideas from my sketchbook, sometimes combining more than one, to paint a landscape, woodland view, river scene, boats in the estuary, or indeed anything else from my sketchbook.

For all enquiries about demonstrations or workshops, please email me or call me (contact details above).

Comments from Art Groups about my On-line Demonstrations

Peterborough Art Society
"Last nights demo was absolutely marvelous. I have had lots of feedback from members to the same effect. It has inspired quite a few of us. I also have had messages from some who could not attend the live meeting and they are pleased that a video will be coming out for them to view. A couple of them had already heard how good it was. How great is that? Thank you once again."

Charnwood Drawing & Painting Club
"Thank you so much for the fine demonstration you gave last evening. We all loved it, and I am sure the demo and the video will convince many of our ardent watercolourists to try oils in the future. In the meantime it was a 'win-win' for all of us."

Downland Art Society, Sussex
"Thank you so much for yesterday it was great and all the feedback received was very encouraging, people love to have their demos at home as they are stuck at home some even professed to prefer it!"

Harpenden Art Club
"Thank you so much for the excellent demonstration you gave for HAC. I think you could tell, from the silence, that everybody was totally absorbed in watching and learning new techniques! It was interesting to see the way you used gouache, the artist's putty and the oil pastels, and to hear your commentary on how you were achieving the effects you wanted."