Artist Interview: Kamaria Pryce

I'm a curious type; I like to know what informs an artist. Who or what do they look to for inspiration? How do they work? Each month I will be asking an artist I admire a few questions, this month is Kamaria Pryce.

Peace V, approx 20cm x 15cm, gouache on paper

Kam, since first discovering your work I was enchanted by your landscape paintings which have a calming and peaceful quality to them. What is it about recording the natural landscape that appeals to you? 

One of the reasons I love being out in nature, is that it evokes a sense of calm and quiet emotionally, mentally, and for me, spiritually. I think because the surroundings are so much bigger than me, it brings peace and belonging. When I paint, I try to capture that experience for the viewer and potential customer.

When I think of your paintings I often think of swishy blades of grass which you capture so beautifully, are small details important in your work? 

It's funny because I'm not naturally a very patient person, I like seeing results in a fairly quick timescale! In nature, there are so many details that I think oftentimes our natural eyes miss. I find when I'm painting landscapes, it forces me to slow down, be patient and take in as many of the details as I can. 

Strength, approx 25cm x 20cm, gouache on paper

The Waiting, approx 25cm x 20cm, gouache on paper

You work with a variety of mediums; pencil, oil pastel and gouache. Do you have a favourite medium to work with and is experimentation important to you? 

I think it's always good and important as a creative to stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone. Whether that's experimenting with different materials or creating different subject matters. It just helps you grow and not be stagnant in your gift. My favourite medium to use so far is gouache!

Are there other materials or ways of working that you’d like to try? 

I would absolutely love to try oil paints one day! 

Take us through a ‘day in the life’ - what does a typical day involve? 

At the moment I work 3 days a week when my youngest is at nursery and my eldest is at school. After I’ve done the school/nursery run I’ll get straight into painting either for a commission or a collection. I try to plan out what I’m going to paint beforehand so I can get the most out of the day! If I have admin to do, I’ll do that in the evenings after my girls have gone to bed. 

Peace IV, approx 25cm x 20cm, gouache on paper

Detail of Peace VII, approx 25cm x 20cm, gouache on paper

Did you study art or any creative subjects or are you completely self-taught? 

I haven’t had any formal art training, so I’ve been developing my skills through a lot of personal practice.

What artists (living or dead) inspire you?

I’ve discovered many artists on Instagram who inspire me for various reasons, some of them are: Claudia Lowry Art, Hannah Winters Art, Ronni Nicole and The Coastal Studio to name just a few!

The Lighthouse, approx 25cm x 20cm, gouache on paper

Tell me about your studio or creative space.

My creative space currently is my dining room table, so not at all fancy! One day of course, I would love to have my own studio space.

I love learning random facts about people, tell me three things about yourself. 

1.     I don’t like butter in my sandwiches, controversial I know! I would normally use a chutney instead.

2.     I’ve been to Beijing in China for a school art trip. It was an amazing opportunity, but I don’t think I would go back!

3.     I’ve just started a BSL (British Sign Language) course! It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, so I’m really happy that I’m going through it, albeit at quite a slow pace at the moment!

Finally, where can people follow your work online?

The best place to follow my art online is Instagram at: www.instgram.com/bloomhope_art or by joining my mailing list, which you can find on my website at: www.bloomhopeart.com.

Thank you so much to Kam for giving us an insight into her practice, I just love the way she captures nature in gouache, her recent sea landscapes are some of my favourites. To see more of her work please take a look at her Instagram page. Kam creates small collections of her works on paper and releases them for sale on her website, they sell out very quickly so I’d recommend joining her mailing list if you’re interested in adding one of her peaceful paintings to your art collection.

If you enjoyed reading then please click the heart at the bottom, share or better still leave me a comment, I love reading them. ❤️

When Drawings Go Wrong

Recently I was in the process of making a drawing that I was really pleased with. It was a piece made in fine liner pen, inspired by a beautiful woodland in Berkshire. I was using a photograph I’d taken to aid composition but the bulk of the drawing was made up of hundreds of tiny lines, marks and details - a bit of an improvised squiggly mess that works as a perfect shorthand for the tangly undergrowth and crisscrossing branches. It’s a technique I’ve utilised in many drawings over many years.

There was a particular part of the drawing that I was procrastinating over, in the distance were some trees that weren’t very clear but needed to be represented in such a way that the marks wouldn’t get confused with the foreground detail. I thought about it and then jumped in with some short vertical marks to denote the presence of branches and leaves but it didn’t look right, in my haste I added more lines and details. The section now appeared a little muddled in my eyes, but the thing with ink on paper is that it cannot be taken away. Unlike oil painting where you can keep reworking a piece, pen is permanent. What was done was done and though I gave the drawing some space by not looking at it for a couple of days when I did look at it again all I could see was the part I wasn’t 100% happy with - a small part of a drawing that otherwise was going to be one of my most successful.

As a lifelong perfectionist I agonised over it. It felt so disappointing as I’d originally intended to make the drawing to enter into an open call. With making art, not every piece is going to go exactly as planned or end up exactly as you might expect. But part of the difficulty for me is that as a full time mother I only get small slithers of time to make my work, a couple of hours in the evenings when I’m tired after a full day of ‘mothering’ also known as ‘toddler wrangling!’ The drawing had taken many hours spread over many days, a lot of time had been invested.

I shared my process on Twitter as I always do, I personally think it’s important to share the good, the bad and the ugly side of being an artist. Reassuringly the majority of people could only see the good in the drawing. I asked if I should sell it, the alternative being to keep it in a drawer as I would no longer want to enter it into an open call as initially intended. Again, the majority thought it was worth selling, that they couldn’t see any flaws, that it was beautiful. Of course there were a few who disagreed, “why would you sell something you are not happy with?” was one persons response. It’s a fair reply, why would I sell something I wasn’t happy with? I pondered over the question. Another said I shouldn’t sell it because “you'll always think a drawing is out there that you were not happy with.” This comment got me thinking too. The thing is, there are probably drawings out there that I wouldn’t be 100% happy with if I saw them again today. As the years have rolled on I feel that my work has improved, hours of practice has meant my mark making has gotten better. The drawings I made in the past were the best I could do at the time and people liked them enough to purchase them to display in their homes but when I see them I think, ‘I could’ve made that section work better’, ‘the mark making there could’ve been tighter’.

One comment that struck a chord was “I don’t think there can be mistakes in art. You see things you wish you’d done differently but to others it’s a beautiful piece of art.”

I started looking at the drawing differently, yes - there is a section that didn’t turn out how I’d have liked but maybe that flaw makes it what it is. Perhaps my perfectionism is getting in the way of appreciating the drawing, the vast majority of which I am very pleased with. If the people viewing the work can appreciate it as it is and can only see the beauty in the piece then perhaps it doesn’t really matter what I think? Reading the comments that praised the work gave me the reassurance that despite my feelings towards the piece it was still good, worthy of a life on somebody’s wall. It gave me confidence in the work which is something I always lack, whether a piece comes out as planned or not. Knowing that the drawing was worth the time spent on it has eased my disappointment. Overall I’ve learnt a lot from this piece and am now using it as a reference to draw another so I can see if I can work out how to do the background trees better.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments, perhaps you disagree entirely and would never even show work to anyone if you thought it was a failure. Or maybe you’ve sold work knowing it wasn’t your best. All opinions are valid and I hope I’ve put mine across well.

If you enjoyed reading then please click the heart at the bottom, share or better still leave me a comment, I love reading them. ❤️

The Royal Forest of Dean and the Wye Valley

I’ve spoken about the Forest of Dean before, it’s a place that has captured my heart so vividly and inspired so many of my drawings that I find it’s quite often in my thoughts. This November I was able to take a last minute trip to the Forest of Dean with my little family, a Monday to Friday break staying in a cabin on the very site that my parents used to take me to on weekend caravan holidays.

As is always the case whether it be a whistle stop day trip or a longer stay I inevitably take hundreds of photographs, the golden hues of the forest in autumn sing to me like silver does to a magpie. The smell of coal smoke is intoxicating, the familiarity of the woodland trails feels comforting, despite the labyrinthine pathways it feels impossible to get lost in certain places, the route is well worn in my memory.

We started the holiday with a trip to Puzzlewood, somewhere that I don’t recall from childhood. It’s been on my list of places to see for years but there never seems enough time or schedules don’t align with when we’re in the vicinity. We hotfooted from home in Hampshire to Puzzlewood in time for our 11am arrival slot. My in-laws had arrived in the forest the day before and met us at Puzzlewood. We walked into the ancient wood and were immediately surrounded by mossy green rocks, twisty branches and tree roots, fungi of all shapes and sizes and slippery steps leading to rustic bridges over crevasses. Climbing and descending the steps was a slow and considered affair, I felt a little like Bambi on ice at some points as the slippery damp stone steps meant clinging on to whatever you could to keep your legs from giving way.

It is said that JRR Tolkien visited this very wood and was inspired so much that he used elements from what he’d seen in his fantasy books, I can see perfectly well why. It feels as though suddenly the trees might come to life, so characterful and warped are they. Fairies could easily be hiding in the nooks and crannies between rocks and branches, moss providing a comfortable seat to rest. Magical is a word I often overuse when it comes to woodland but it certainly does suit Puzzlewood. The maze-like paths twist and turn, meander up and down over bridges and by caves until you reach a little gate, signalling the end and a return to the Muggle world (yes, supposedly JK Rowling who grew up close to the Forest of Dean also visited Puzzlewood and was inspired by it when writing The Forbidden Forest in the Harry Potter series).

After a turn chasing my son around the willow maze which reminded me of the final episode of True Detective season one (niche reference) we drove to Cannop ponds and walked around the lakes.

The next day we drove to Symonds Yat Rock in the Wye Valley. My memories of Symonds Yat from childhood are a little warped, kind of strange and dream-like. There are rosy toned photographs of a four or five year old me, sat in a canoe with my older half brother sat behind me on the River Wye, bright pink flowers next to the mooring posts by The Saracens Head. Remembering walking from the rock to the river, being encouraged to take shortcuts down steep muddy banks by my dad which resulted in slipping and being stabbed in the leg by a splintered branch. Feeling like where we parked the car at Symonds Yat Rock and where The Saracens Head were were two completely different places, not related at all, a million miles apart. It’s strange how you can mis-remember a place and how funny thoughts from being young stay with you, now whenever I think of Symonds Yat and whenever I visit it I can’t help but think of those hazy muddled memories. We took a walk to the viewpoint and ate our lunch on the stone steps, we then did the Symonds Yat Rock loop walk which dips down into the valley slightly and then back up again. Once back at the carpark which is actually quite picturesque in the autumn we played in the dried leaves.

On the third day we walked in Nagshead Nature Reserve, just across the road from our cabin. It was a drizzly day, rain in autumn just seems to intensify the colours of the turning leaves. Mist hung in the air slightly giving the forest an atmosphere, mysterious and a little foreboding. We were just about the only people on the trail, worn out from carrying our little one and in awe of the beauty of the golden forest. I always think of Nagshead as being one of the most beautiful parts of the Forest of Dean, the colours seem almost surreal. After our loop walk we met my in-laws for a delicious pub lunch in Alvington.

On our final day we all met at the Sculpture Trail at Beechenhurst Lodge for a walk taking in all 16 of the sculptures, although annoyingly we did manage to overlook one. The Sculpture Trail sits steadfast in my memory. A place of wonder where I can round a corner and come face to face with a tree that I’ve lovingly observed or a landscape of pathways that I’ve painstakingly recreated in pen. It’s the one place that we always revisit whenever we come to the forest.

If you enjoyed reading then please click the heart at the bottom, share or better still leave me a comment, I love reading them. ❤️