Melanie Beacroft

Garden flowers, gnarly ancient trees and weather worn branches, shaped by the elements excite me. I am drawn to woodland, coast and wild, untamed places, where I can seek out and investigate the tangled forms of trees in an overgrown spinney or the reflections in a field margin pond. When landscape painting, I use oils, acrylics or watercolours, often taking inspiration from rural Britain. Employing a range of tools including palette knives, mop brushes rounds and filberts allows me to create gestural marks, colourful washes and expressive brushwork. I love to capture the intense detail and natural textures of trees, combining micron pens with inks and watercolours on heavy cold pressed papers. Furthermore, stepping out from my home studio takes me directly into the cottage garden where I sketch and experiment with compositions for lino designs and drypoint plates. Home-grown flowers and their seed heads are fun to carve and incise as they provide exciting lines, shapes and forms - perfect for relief and intaglio printmaking. My artwork is certainly a result of my passion for gardening and the natural world.