Elaine is a painter and musician. With a house and studio in St. Ives, she enjoys drinking coffee sitting on the slate step, and taking in the view looking down over the bay. Living high on the hill, Elaine loves the ‘house by the sea’ feeling in paintings with distant views of boats, sea and shorelines and close up detail of flowers on a table, pebbles and shells, with favourite cups, mugs and bowls. She works on canvas,board and paper using mixed media to create the line and surface that is necessary.

She loves walking along the cliffs and sea paths, observing the changing light of sea and sky. This is a strong influence on how Elaine paints.

When I paint I choose things I love - a wild cliff top walk with spectacular views, a bunch of sweet smelling hedgerow flowers with some found objects, a glimpse of birds in my garden or cascades of greenfinches falling

from the cherry tree and wide open beaches that have their own mood and colour depending on the time of day. The blueness of sea makes my soul sing, I find Cornwall truly romantic and inspirational. And of course I can make up my own colours depending on how I’m feeling being in that place.

That’s the fun side of being an artist, you can do anything...anything you want. I like to put in an unexpected colour, line or object, mainly to please me, but also I think, to make the viewer curious. And I do love humour in my work too. If I can make someone smile, then that’s great!”