“Unless you spend time on something, you don’t develop as much as you can”

 

Gill Drew is a Southampton based acrylic artist and teacher who has won various awards and has had her work selected by the Southampton City Art Gallery twice.

 

“After teaching for a long time, it was really amazing to be given the space and time and opportunity  to develop my own work more seriously. So when I left teaching at schools, I was able to do that.” Part of developing her art more seriously was an inclusion of a weekly, monthly and yearly planner where Gill records her hours in the studio at least 2 days a week on a Monday and Tuesday and sometimes a Friday and the weekend. 

 

When asked if there is any theme or message in her painting, Gill said “I’m inspired to create a visual story to find a connection to a memory”. Lots of Gill’s artworks embody that feeling such as the “Sepia Discoveries” portfolio which is made entirely of Gill’s family albums and pictures . 

 

 One of her favourite pieces of art she has painted, “The Violin Maker”, is an example of a painting that was a sepia image. The figure in the painting would be her great uncle, a violin maker and photographer. “The Violin Maker”  won the The Gosport Open Art Exhibition 2020 to Gill’s “surprise”.  Another reason Gill uses sepia images is that it allows her “free rein” to create her own colour palette.

 

In the future, Gill would like to explore encaustic painting, a layering process art that involves wax which adds depth to the painting.

 

Please see Gill at https://gilldrew.co.uk/if you would like to see some more of her paintings.