Mixed Media Pieces – Burnham Art Trail 2025

I’m sticking with the nature theme for Burnham Art Trail 2025. I’ve made small mixed media paintings inspired by the flowers that were blooming in some of the artists’ studio gardens during Art Trail week last year.

Come and visit 4 Fernlea Road, Burnham-on-Crouch, CM0 8EJ 11am-5pm from Saturday 21st until Sunday 29th June 2025 

You an check out the info for all the venues and artists on the Burnham Art Trail website.
eryngium, mixed media, artwork, painting, drawing, marker pen, watercolour, oil paint, coloured pencil, crackle glaze, Burnham Art Trail 2025, garden, nature, flower, spikes

These eryngiums were shining in the sunshine in the garden of Studio 4A in Witney Road. 

eryngium, mixed media, artwork, painting, drawing, marker pen, watercolour, oil paint, coloured pencil, crackle glaze, Burnham Art Trail 2025, garden, nature, flower, spikes

Also known as giant sea holly – they are spitefully sharp – and Miss Willmott’s ghost after a legendary nineteenth century gardener who would secretly sow the seeds in other people’s gardens.

eryngium, mixed media, artwork, painting, drawing, marker pen, watercolour, oil paint, coloured pencil, crackle glaze, Burnham Art Trail 2025, garden, nature, flower, spikes

I started painting these while hanging out in the Franklins’ beautiful garden at 4 Fernlea Road (my own venue). I finished them off with a crackle glaze and glitter gel as I felt that they reflected the shiny, spininess off the plant.

Burnham Art Trail 2025, giant scabious, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, gold ink, collage, felt pen

I was really drawn to these blousy giant scabious flowers which were blooming in the Frankins’ garden. 

Burnham Art Trail 2025, giant scabious, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, gold ink, collage, felt pen

I started with permanent marker and watercolour paint and then deepened the greens of the centre of the flowers with coloured pencil and felt tip pen.

Burnham Art Trail 2025, giant scabious, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, gold ink, collage, felt pen

I accentuated the shape of the circular centre by transferring gold ink with the rim of a glass and added the contrast of the collaged text.

Burnham Art Trail 2025, water lily, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, text, collage, felt pen

The next three paintings were inspired by the gorgeous water lilies in the Franklins’ pond.

Burnham Art Trail 2025, water lily, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, text, collage, felt pen Burnham Art Trail 2025, water lily, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, text, collage, felt pen

And I chose to depict the daisies in the three paintings below:

I apllied little blobs of acrylic paint to add texture and intense colour to the yellow centres.

And then I painted three versions of the verbena / vervain:

Burnham Art Trail 2025, verbena, vervain, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, silver ink, collage Burnham Art Trail 2025, verbena, vervain, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, silver ink, collage Burnham Art Trail 2025, verbena, vervain, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil, silver ink, collage

And these pansies were blooming on the patio at home during Art Trail week, rather than in the Franklins’ garden:

Burnham Art Trail 2025, pansy, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil Burnham Art Trail 2025, pansy, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil Burnham Art Trail 2025, pansy, flower, petals, nature, permanent marker, watercolour, coloured pencil

Signwriting – Mary’s Living and Giving Shop

I recently did a bit of signwriting to update the sandwich board for the Mary’s Living and Giving Shop in Bermondsey Street.

bermondsey street, marys living and giving shop, save the children, ethical fashion, vintage, secondhand, volunteer, sandwich board, freehand, sign-writing, text, illustration, blackboard, chalk, pens, drawing, design, london, donate, reuse, recycleI liked the Save the Children symbols (the little red figures) that the previous Volunteer had drawn so I rubbed out around them and incorporated them into the new design.

Lucky those chalk pens are weather resistant!

bermondsey street, marys living and giving shop, save the children, ethical fashion, vintage, secondhand, volunteer, sandwich board, freehand, sign-writing, text, illustration, blackboard, chalk, pens, drawing, design, london, donate, reuse, recycle

It’s a lovely place to volunteeer and it really is full of treasures! (No staff discounts!!)

Chicken Bus

chicken bus, illustration, pencil, drawing, digital illustration, feliz, baila, cuando, donde, ahora

I was inspired to try and capture the humour and vibrancy of these beautiful and ubiquitous buses when I was in Guatemala in the autumn of 2014.

The buses are imported from the US or Canada once they retire from the school run and are then dolled up and converted, usually by a team of two people, who run them as public transport on specific routes, crammed to the gills with paying passengers, luggage and even livestock, hence the name Chicken Bus.

chicken bus, san pedro la laguna, guatemala

I used this photo which I took in San Pedro on the shore of Lake Atitlan as my model

chicken bus, sketch, pencil

I made this rather wonky sketch from the photo and scanned it into Photoshop

chicken bus, pencil drawing

I copied the fat side of the wonky sketch, flipping it over to make a symmetrical template

chicken bus, pencil drawing

 and then set about making a careful pencil drawing

chicken bus, pencil drawing

I scanned the finished drawing

chicken bus, digital colouring

and coloured it in Photoshop layers; at this stage the image looked a bit plain and flat

chicken bus, pencil drawing

so I added more detail to the pencil drawing, scanned it into Photoshop

vuela, chicken bus, illustration

and applied the cut out line work over the coloured bus.

I had a lot of fun making 15 different coloured versions of the bus before I’d decided what to write in the destination boxes. In the end I added various invitations and questions (afterall, you can change your destination if you dance or dream) in Spanish before grouping them into three sets of five buses to make simple poems.

The background is scanned paper.

chicken bus, illustration, pencil, drawing, digital illustration, listo, tranqui, paz, gracia, amor

¿Listo? ¡Tranqui! ¿Paz? ¡Gracia! ¡Amor!

(Ready? Calm down! Peace? Grace! Love!)

chicken bus, illustration, pencil, drawing, digital illustration, venga, guapa, suena, vamos, vuela

¡Venga! ¡Guapa! ¡Sueña! ¡Vamos! ¡Vuela!

(Come on! Beautiful! Dream! Let´s go! Fly!)

chicken bus, illustration, pencil, drawing, digital illustration, feliz, baila, cuando, donde, ahora

¿Feliz? ¡Baila! ¿Cuando? ¿Donde? ¿Ahora?

(Happy? Dance! When? Where? Now?)

peace, bullet holes, chicken bus, illustration

A friend I´d met on my travels asked where the bullet holes were since Guatemala has a somewhat deserved reputation as a trouble spot, so I added a few to the Peace? bus.

chicken bus, illustration, pencil, drawing, digital illustration, venga, guapa, sonar, vamos, vuela, print, laser print

 

And I’ve just picked up the first paper versions from my printer…lovely colours, thank you Pepe.