Introducing Felicity Grace

I'm delighted to be a part of the postcard project and I'm hoping it will be the incentive I need to make sketching a routine when I'm out walking. I love to walk and I'm very lucky to have lots of beautiful scenery here in Geneva. I've been living here, with my husband and two teenage sons, since 2006 and before that we were living in Kuwait. After five years of living in a country where everyone drives and walking is seen as a little odd, more than anything else, I missed just being able to go out of my front door and walk!

I've been drawing since I was a child and considered myself an artist for as long as I can remember. It wasn't encouraged though, so I'm self taught. I used to draw detailed pencil portraits and sketch very occassionally until 2005 when I discovered an online group of artists and set up a blog. I was living in Kuwait at the time, and active in a very creative quilt group. Quilting brought out a love of colour I'd forgotten I had, and my confidence really grew once I started sketching. Having a blog to update and taking photos around Kuwait really opened my eyes in a new way to the inspiration all around me and I stopped drawing from photos and magazines and started recording my own life. I set up another blog, Sketches by Fiz, just for my drawings. In 2008 I started using colour pencils for portraits such as this one, of my brother

Last year I began using watercolours, and I'm very much a novice, but I've found them perfect for representing leaves and flowers. One of my first memories is of a lupin and it's leaves and I remember how perfectly designed it was and how beautifully the colours faded into one another. So I feel I have come full circle, trying to do justice to the little marvels of nature I collect on my walks. These leaves were collected in my garden

I'm sure my postcards will be mostly things I've collected, but being a part of this exchange with such an inspiring and supportive group of artists, I feel sure it will help me grow and push me even further in my own artistic journey!