Born in Buckinghamshire, Heather spent her formative years on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall where her father was an artist and Studio Potter.
After a B.A degree at Falmouth and Exeter she returned to Berkshire where she shared a studio with her father, producing copper-plate etchings that she sold in London, in Liberty’s and the Medici Gallery in Bond St. She attributes the strong qualities of light in her oil paintings now to an apprenticeship spent describing light and landscape in black and white aquatint before developing it into large watercolours of sunlit gardens. “Light is the thread that has run through my work from the beginning “she says…. “And plants of course “.
From spending a ‘free range’ childhood in Cornwall and time spent with her grandparents in the Cotswolds, Heather has always immersed herself in the countryside. “I have spent a lifetime just gazing into hedgerows! I bought myself a copy of The Concise British Flora when I was 13 yrs old and would look up any flower that I didn’t know the name of! Books on plants and gardens still take up lots of space on my bookshelves “
From her home and studio in West Cornwall, Heather takes her dog and walks the quieter paths and woodlands often early in the morning, before returning to capture these moments on canvas.
Still a dedicated plants woman she grows her favourite wildflowers like Foxgloves and Cow-parsley amongst the cultivars in her garden, creating a tapestry of flowers like those that she paints, “I have even planted a wild Gorse bush “she says, “So I can just sit and enjoy that delicious coconut scent. Plants and sunlight, they’re my inspiration “.