**THE POWER OF WORDS**

Stories as inspiration

Fairy tales, fables, legends and children's stories generally, are as fascinating to me now as they were when I was a child. I have my favourites, like any child would have, but sometimes it is not the best stories that are the most inspiring, but the ones where the power of the words touch a part of me, whereby I can see something special in my mind's eye that desperately wants to be expressed in colour and form. The Little Mermaid was one such story that I have often re-visited over the years. The painting above was the second version to be living in the round picture frame, with many years between them. The actual painting was created with watercolours and inks, but I also painted both the inner and outer sides of the glass frame as well as etching the glass, to bring about some depth into the subject. I created a collage around the frame too, using real shells and plant material. I love to create things using a variety of materials and techniques as it's exciting, and sometimes challenging to achieve the effect I have in mind