Lucy Pittaway
What is your background?
I studied Art and Design from the earliest age, taking a National Diploma at college and furthering my education with a BA Hons Degree in Graphic Design. After a year out, running my own design and crafts business, I spent two years as a designer before I came across an interesting opportunity to teach the subject I love, at the college I previously attended as a student. Eight and a half years later I left teaching to pursue my true passion in life, painting and drawing.
Explain what you do in 100 words.
I use the experience of everyday life to help inspire my pictures. The raw emotion I feel from the experiences I have had are transfered to my work. I paint from the heart and I use ‘characters’ to represent people in life such as sheep or cows, or in the case of my ‘houses’ collection, the house itself is representative of the ‘being’. Colour plays a huge part in helping to cement the emotional state of the piece.
What five words best describe your work?
Family Day Out
Colourful, emotive, expressive, textured, characterful.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m currently working on introducing a new character into my work. A very strong, bold character that I have personally spent some time with!
Which three artists would you like to be compared to?
I don’t like being compared to other artists, because they have nothing to do with my work but I still get compared to several in spite of my best efforts to be unique! I don’t look at other artists if I can help it because I don’t like to be influenced by them. Sure, if I’m exploring new towns or cities or I’m away on holiday I will have a wander into the odd gallery but generally from the point of view of seeing if they might stock my work! My style is my own and is drawn from personal experience. One artist who’s work I have always loved however is Bob Barker.
What’s the best piece of advice you have been given?
I have been given some great advice over the years, from family and friends and much from my husband. However, my brother once quoted a line from a song, you will know this one I’m sure, and he said “Lucy, life is a roller-coaster, you just have to ride it”. It’s just so true. Life has so many ups and downs and you have to take the rough with the smooth. A lot of my paintings have the “roller-coaster hills” in them and its from this quote that they arose.
Pen Hill Sunrise
Favourite or most inspirational place in Yorkshire.
Oh, there are so many, but if I have to pick one I would say the view of Pen Hill in Wensleydale.
Tell us something we don’t know.
When I was 16, Bowes Museum picked my t-shirt design in a competition to be printed for their centenary celebrations!
