Michaela Laurie

Michaela is fascinated by layering of lines and depth of colour to create texture and movement. Her technique involves scribbling with pen and ink and then “painting’ with coloured pencils. The coloured pencil medium allows for translucent rich colour to be built up because their waxy consistency allows blending, layering and glazing of the coloured pencil marks. The combination of ink and coloured pencil allows for areas of light and dark to be created giving a very three dimensional effect. The result is paintings which glow from within. This technique is brought to subjects such as landscape, islands in the bay, bonsai gardens and still life subjects.  She likes to bring elements of magic into her interpretation of the landscape to make it somewhat fantastical. She sees a world of calm stillness with elements appearing from her imagination and childhood. Michaela has noticed that there is something in the human psyche which draws us to anything, no matter how small, giving the evidence of human presence or to creatures, such as animals and birds. Our instinctive eye seems to search this out before looking at a landscape. Our eye then flickers across the landscape and then back to what we first sort out. The manmade elements Michaela includes in her work, invite the viewer to enter the landscape, walk through and interact with it through their imagination. The works evoke a sense of peace, contemplation and tranquillity