About Natasha
Hi, I’m Natasha, An Irish artist with two passions, painting & teaching. If I’m not holding workshops in my studio in Donegal or various art centres throughout Northern Ireland, I’m in my studio in Belfast, either working on commissions or teaching live classes online.
Painting has always been my passion. After completing secondary education in Donegal, I went to the Ulster University in Derry to complete my foundation in Art & Design and from there, I completed an art degree in Ulster University. Belfast.
Married now with two children, life is busy, but when your passion becomes your job, it doesn’t feel like work. Like a lot of working artists, it took me a while to get here! Following my degree, unsure of what to do next and needing to make a living, I took a temporary position as a recruitment consultant. This would be my career for the next 13 years! In the background I was always painting and when I got the time I took the odd evening class, but I yearned to be a full-time artist.
Then in 2017, after a few months off with a back injury, I completed an oil painting of my daughter at the piano and shared it on social media. I quickly received a number of commissions and decided to take a year out to paint and worked part time teaching in a local art centre and the rest, as they say, is history.
About my process
My approach to painting, like my approach to teaching is continually developing. I knew I wanted to be an artist, but left art college doubting my ability to be one. Looking back now I realise art college probably was not suited to my growth as an aspiring artist. I did not want to learn about 20th century concepts, self -indulgent art of the modern era and pushing the boundaries to the point you question if it is even art at all! I simply wanted to learn how to draw & paint more competently, more confidently. At the time, I wasn’t aware of other options open to me. Today, with the rise of so many great art academies, workshops & ateliers, not to mention the ability to access these as tutorials online, things are much different. Now, a little older, wiser & in tune with the kind of artist I want to be, my methods are derived from researching and learning the teaching methods of the old masters that produced the world’s greatest artists. I have since trained under Maestro John Angel from the Angel Academy in Florence and had tuition from Ashish Patel, Martin Campos and Paul Foxton, to name but a few.
Learning the method & technique used by the great painters such as Da Vinci, Vermeer, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Bouguereau and others, allows me to grow in confidence, painting convincing and evocative works. I believe that it is at this stage I can move forward to create unique works with my own individual style, taking what I have learnt and deciding what works for me and what does not. This gives me the free range to capture, enhance & manipulate art the way I want it to be seen.
This quote from John Angel, I think, sums it up perfectly:
“Starting from nothing you can go nowhere, but stand on the shoulders of giants, and you possess the tools and vision to travel far.”
As well as looking to the great painters of the past, I am also learning so much from the great painters of the present such as Casey Baugh, Natalia Fabia, Nick Alm and Jeremy Lipking, again to name but a few. Painting is this never-ending journey of discovery. I have no doubt the processes I use now will differ to the processes I use in the future; I welcome it and look forward to where this journey will bring me.
