​Visual art

What I do on holidays to wild places..............

Sketch, paint, write, walk, swim, scramble.

Sometimes I have to improvise, like in the header photo above, where I was all set up to paint and realised I'd forgotten my water pot. While having a lovely cooling swim in Buttermere in the Lake District, I saw a lost welly submerged below me. Problem solved!! 

​It always starts with walking. Usually with a sketchbook in my pocket. Then one thing leads to another.

My artwork is inspired by the places I come to know through walking. These can be on the South Downs just a few minutes walk from my home, in wild places explored while away on holiday, in towns and cities I visit and by what I see and experience there, which could be a building, a view, a series of fence posts, a mountain range or the litter stranded on a fence.

I show my work at Brighton festival artists open houses, pop up sales, galleries and sometimes on the hill where make it.
Sketchbook pages with rocky River Glaslyn and moody trees.
Sketchbook pages of Afon Glaslyn. Available as mounted prints at Laughing Dog Gallery, Brighton Marina during August 2018.
Sketchbook pages of mountains in La Gomera, Canary Islands.
Sketchbook detail from painting trip in La Gomera, Canary Islands. Mounted print available in show at Laughing Dog Gallery, Brighton August 2018.
Annie Kerr and fellow artists in front of their work at Laughing Dog Gallery, Brighton Marina
At Laughing Dog Gallery, Brighton Marina with some of my fellow Kemptown Artists showing our work until 31st August 2018.
Picture of Annie smiling, holding one of her prints sold to a new owner.
Annie Kerr holding one of her prints sold at her open house show in May 2018 and ready to go off to its new home.
Annie's artwork in progress on a sketching trip. Picture of sketch in a meadow with paintbox and brush
Sketching on the Downs

Walking with a sketchbook in my pocket makes for the best kind of day and while I enjoy sketching on trips abroad, I'm just as happy walking from home to work on the hills at the edge of town.

Out in the field, I use ink, twig pens, pastels and watercolour and enjoy letting pages take a dip in the stream or drag wet ink with found sheep wool and seed heads. 

For urban trips, I like to fit everything into one pocket, so I take just one sketchbook, an ink pen and maybe a few watercolour crayons.

I like to make panoramic sketches on my own handmade concertina sketchbooks, sometimes adding written text as an integral part of the pieces.

At my work table, I might add collage, acrylics and more pastels, but my aim is always to try to keep some of the lovely spontaneity of the first sketches.
Sketches of tower blocks at Bankside in London
Sketchbook pages, Bankside, London
Sketch of view of low tide at Falling Sands seen from the clifftops
Sketch of low tide at Falling Sands looking down from the clifftops
Thank you

To everyone who visited Percival Mansions Art House for the open house show, to everyone who dropped by to say hello, to the people I met for the first time, my friends, supporters and colleagues, to all the people who bought my work and who have now taken it to new homes, to my fellow artists and makers for sharing the weekends with me and especially to Cathy and Rupert for opening their lovely seafront flat to all of us. It was great!!