Local artist love...

I had to share with you the exciting talent of local artist Terry Brookes. As a huge fan of The Beatles, I fell in love with his piece 'When The Beatles came to Barnsley' His take on pop art with a local twist has become an instant hit. The playful nature of his work and bright colours, bring a beaming smile to my face every time. 

Terry explains his motivations to paint...

'I have always painted, self taught, and driven on by my dad who was, amongst other things, a semi-professional wrestler, painter, and signwriter.  Some of the stuff I'm doing now, I was doing when I was in my teens - pop art, music, comics related stuff; Andy Warhol, Lichtenstein, Peanuts, DC Comics, Tin Tin, ...

To say that I am a music fan is an understatement.  I have always loved and collected music; vinyl especially – The Beatles, Motown, Stax, Bowie, punk, Weller, Morrissey & The Smiths, etc, etc,

About 3 or 4 years ago I started painting prolifically mainly for my own interest – just for fun.  I decided to setup my own website that I could easily maintain and load up images of my artwork – nothing fancy, just for my own fun.

I decided to paint some quirky scenes of Barnsley and the area, starting off with a painting of the now defunct Casa Disco record shop.  The first one I did was Casa Disco 1977, with a punk (Sid Vicious?) looking in the window at the records that were issued that year; Bowie's Heroes, Blondie, The Police, Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop.  I am going to follow this series with, amongst others; Heavy Metal, Mods, Soul, etc – there's plenty of scope.'

It was his 'When The Beatles came to Barnsley' that first captured my imagination and here's a little bit more about the painting, by the man himself.

'I was looking through some old photos one day when one caught my eye of Barnsley's Market Hill, which, at one time, had a zebra crossing at the bottom of the hill, and the wonderful Town Hall building at the top.  This reminded me of the cover of the Beatles Abbey Road album – and hey presto the painting "when the Beatles came to Barnsley" was born.'  

Terry's work has already hung in a few local cafe's and restaurants. I am thrilled to announce he will be exhibiting his work in Experience Barnsley in January 2014, and hope you will all join me down there to support him. He is currently busy working on paintings for his new exhibition and promises for some quirky surprises, including a chance to "get inside a BROOKES painting".

For more of his artwork and further information, please visit his website here. 

My weekly sketch...Books

My weekly sketch, of things that I love, is books this week. Although I am slowly but surely making my way into the digital age, I still enjoy the feel of a book in my hands. Despite the ease and convenience of the kindle, nothing compares to the smell of a leather bound book with ageing pages. My husband's love of books is far greater than my own. He owns several copies of the same book. We are unable to go anywhere without my husband going missing down some quaint little lane. He is adept at sniffing out an antique book shop or charity shop within a mile radius. Recently, we decided to read each other's favourite book (Little Women and The Count of Monte Cristo). This he felt was an excuse for him to buy a new copy of each. I really should blame myself for this collecting getting out of hand, as I foolishly allowed my husband to have one of the rooms in our house as a study. This has now been filled to the brim with books.

Writing books has recently become a love of mine. I have been writing children's books and these are available to download for free on the My Books section of my blog. These are currently works in progress and I hope to revisit these soon. This seems to keep going to the bottom of the to do list since I became a mummy. I really urge anyone, who has a passion to write, to try it, as I gained immense pleasure from creating something. Although I have made mistakes along the way, I relish the prospect of redrafting until I have made them as close to perfect as possible. I am bursting with lots of ideas of how to improve them and plans for future installments in the Bones The Dog series.

My weekly sketch...Tea

I really enjoy creating pieces of art, but with a newborn baby boy, I don't think I'll really get the chance to do anything too time consuming. Simple ink sketches are an ideal outlet for my creative cravings. Here's my first quick attempt at one. To give this an almost chalkboard feel, I simply inverted the colours on GIMP. 

I decided that the theme of my sketches should be things that I love. Tea is definitely one of the things I love. I do not function without it. My husband and I often have silly bets to determine who has to make all the cups of tea in a week. When you drink as much tea as we do, these are high stakes. Whilst in University, my friend Fiona and I would drink copious amounts of tea accompanied by chocolate, whilst reading showbiz gossip magazines, with a romcom on the telly. Heaven!