Addicted to art.

MY START

A Northerner at heart

Hailing from the North-East of England, I grew up surrounded by industrial concrete buildings contrasted with rolling hills and colourful countryside. My dad, a brilliant painter, encouraged me to pursue a creative career- drawing & painting from a very early age.

A career in graphic design

After studying at Cleveland College of Art and then St Martin's in London, I moved into graphic design and still work across multiple campaigns within advertising and branding.

I used Julie Chicago as my 'screen name' online years ago, as it was shorter than 'Featherstone' as I was studying Judy Chicago at St Martins. It's stuck ever since!

My client work portfolio can be seen over on Behance.

Alongside this career is a love of digital art and painting, creating colourful vector designs, lettering and patterns- something I have always continued after-hours, making something every day.

The freedom of painting and drawing whatever I want, when I want, completely free from subjective amends that are a constant in commercial design work, is the best part of creating my own art.

Bright colours, bold shapes...

One thing consistent through my work is a love of colour. Whether painting painting my imaginary landscapes, or digitally drawing, the colour themes transfer between the 2 media.

The sheer volume of graphic digital works I have made, does make me favour neater mark-making when painting, but this has loosened up over the years, so they are now more a mix of graphic and painterly combined. I rarely have a topic in mind when I start painting a piece, it is perhaps more of a mood or feeling in the moment. I genuinely have no idea where some of the pieces come from- they just burst out from an incredibly strong desire to start laying down colours and free flowing shapes subconsciously. Working on several pieces over time, allows me to revisit each one and build up layers and shapes.

Here is a corner of my studio where I create all of my works, in leafy East London. Each piece is painted with much love and effort, and whenever a sale is made, I personally pack and post the artwork from here, myself.
I loathe all the highbrow supposed blurb people write about their works, I just make things out of instinct and feelings, and I'd rather let the viewer make up their own minds when looking at the pieces, so you won't find long-winded paragraphs about the 'hidden meanings' in my paintings 😁

A colourful space

Addicted to painting , I have several works on the go all at the same time...

Local

I love buildings too, in complete contrast to my abstract works. It started on my old commute where I used my mobile and stylus to capture things on the DLR to Canary Wharf. Whenever I re visit my hometown up North, or am wandering locally or in central London, I love capturing lots of architecture -from ordinary houses to shops and cityscapes. They're all available on RedBubble

I also make cards and have prints for sale in our local Emporium in East London, and held a local exhibiton there last year, and frequently sell art locally. The drawings I made of the Emporium (below) are two of my bestsellers.

Commission a digital building/house portrait

House and building portraits make amazing gifts, they are unique and so personal. I digitally draw to A5 (in an A4 mount) for around £90. All that is needed is a couple of colour photographs of the building or home.

Please contact me if you would like to commission one, -and bear in mind your timing requirements as they take around a week (plus shipping time). Include the word 'commissions' in the subject line!

My latest commission, the gorgeous Second Nature in Walthamstow.