Practitioner Focus: Kayleigh Swann

Hello, my name is Kayleigh and I'm a Secondary School Art Teacher, now teaching both Technology and Art. I have a degree in Graphic Design which I absolutely loved, and it truly was the best 3 years of my life. However, there is a part of me that wishes I had done Fine Art. Maybe it'll happen in the future, who knows.

 

I love to create abstract artwork, the colours, shapes, lines, patterns and the unknown fascinate me. I love that we can see what we want to see without being right or wrong. Nature is also close to my heart, the pure beauty of something that grows and grows and keeps living on no matter what. I've recently been creating water colour backgrounds using cling film to add the sense of texture, and then using a black Posca pen to create drawings made up of lines to show tone and shape.  

 

I also love to play.  Cutting, sticking, layering, painting, colouring, mark making. Anything goes. But in all honesty, I don't do enough of it as day to day life just gets in the way especially with a 4 year old and 8 month old keeping me busy, as well as part-time teaching.

 

My inspiration comes from a lot of areas to be honest. I've always been a huge fan of Pop Art, especially Roy Lichtenstein. I love his use of bold colour, block shape and black outlines. Influences from his work popped up a lot during my GCSE Art course and I based a lot of final pieces around his creations. I also love that in his exhibitions you can still see the pencil marks from where he has planned out his work, proving that no piece of artwork needs to be perfect to be successful.

 

Currently I am following several people on Instagram who inspire me daily such as Alisa Burke, who's experimentation and creativity blows my mind. Ella Morella for her beautiful colour choices and sketches. Emma Carlisle for her commitment to local surroundings and her expressive brush marks. I honestly could go on as there are so many talented creative people out there.  I am loving leaves so much at the minute though, how different they are, how many shades of green there are in each one, how different their textures can be and how delicate they are to look at with their intricate details - I need to explore these in a lot more detail than what I am doing now.  

 

The first creative thing I can remember making was for my Nan. It was a drawing of myself that was coloured in, cut out and then pieced back together using split pins. Although it's faded, my Nan still has it hung up in her kitchen for all to see and it makes me smile every time we I see it. It's been a long time since I've seen it because of Covid so I'm hoping Nan hasn't replaced it in my absence! Fingers crossed!

 

Currently I am experimenting with coloured backgrounds, mainly using watercolour, and pen drawings. However, I have just purchased some acrylic paint inks and alcohol ink to play around with after seeing some beautiful work on the Sketchbook Circle page. I am also using some of my brain space at the minute to think about setting up an Instagram purely for my art, rather than just personal. I need to dedicate more time to my art (which I'm getting better at I promise) and to possibly set up an Etsy shop but who knows if I'll ever get that far. So watch this space as you never know!