About Shirley Trevena RI

Shirley Trevena is extremely well known - internationally - as a watercolour painter. This is a video about Shirley talking about how she became a painter and her approach to making art in watercolour. 

Shirley is also: 

• a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours. She was elected inn 1994 and served as a committee member for 8 years.
  
• an ex-local government officer who worked in Planning (I never knew that before!) 
• who used to be "just a holiday painter" - who started painting in watercolour while on holiday in Cornwall
  
• resigned her planning job nearly 30 years ago to become a professional full time artist
• Draws using the same pen as me (yay for the Pilot G-TEC-C4)
• credits the film "A Bigger Splash" - about David Hockney - as providing inspiration for her and proved that there were no rules
• started painting floral paintings - for which she is perhaps best known

Flowers by Shirley Trevena

• now she focuses more on still life - but also paints other subjects
• Comments in the video about
• how she uses her iPad to help her make decisions about the development of her painting 
• her approach to drawing and painting and
• how she breaks rules, alters perspective and features patterns.... 

She written three art instruction books about her approach to painting in watercolour

• Breaking the Rules of Watercolour (2012)
• Vibrant Watercolours (2006) 
• Taking Risks with Watercolour (2004)

She has also made several instructional DVDs. 

If you want to pep up your watercolours, I suggest you take a look!