Shirley Trevena - Shirley Trevena Watercolours

My thanks to my commissioning editor Cathy Gosling for all her support and encouragement. This, and my previous three books, would not have been possible without her.

On thinking about this surprising incident, I thought how useful it would be to look again at work I had agonised over many years ago. I am a great believer in the need to keep past efforts: bits of drawings; experimental work and neglected paintings only half finished which will never be framed but may be useful one day; hundreds of scraps of paper, photos and bits of magazines all cut out and put away either with the hope that I would be inspired at some future date by their subject matter or, as in some cases, thumbnail sketches that had been turned into successful paintings. All these images whisk me back 30 years or more. It felt as if I was studying a family photograph album where you can see on one page your aunts and uncles when young, pulling silly faces and doing cartwheels, and then you turn the page and see them as they are now, older and rather more defined. I like this idea of seeing time pass with images and decided to try to reproduce it in book form. But I also wanted to have time to go backwards as well as forwards and that meant putting new paintings, straight from the studio, next to earlier work using similar ideas and objects, but probably painted more than 20 years before.

I would write my thoughts, ideas and the stories behind many of these pictures, giving the reader an insight into my work as it has evolved. As a teenager I was destined to work in an office unfortunately art college was not an option. In my hunt for images in this book I did manage to find a few drawings made when I was a child, and looking at them now, I can persuade myself that I can see the beginnings of my need to break the rules of perspective although young children dont bother with that rule thats what makes their pictures so exciting. I found some fairly competent, tight pencil drawings. I was obviously looking hard at my subject matter and knew how to wield a pencil but not a lot of risks were taken then. There are a few paintings of the type I started with when I gave up my office career.

They are quite bold and expressive. I knew nothing about using watercolour and so it was all trial and error. I found out in later years that this was a big advantage. My excitement and need to experiment carried me through to discover the beginnings of a style of painting that would be recognizable mine. In parts of the book I have included paintings that in my opinion are the best I have ever produced, the ones that I wish I had never given away or sold. Looking again at these favourite paintings helps me to judge if the work I am involved in now has moved on in any way, or if I think I still havent bettered these earlier pieces.

You will see quite a few paintings that shine a light on my interests, such as my love for the cinema, theatre and, a real favourite, the circus life. My childhood was packed with visits to these spectacular events. I was told that my first visit to the theatre was as a baby on my mothers lap while my father was at the back of the theatre working the spotlights onto the stage. My mother was also very theatrical in her early career and later life but she would have been horrified if I had run away to join the circus, which seemed such a magical idea at the age of 10. After the early portraits, I became known for my still-life paintings. I had a strong desire to work with familiar, recognizable items and to try to change their ordinariness to make them special in some way.

My studio is full of these wonderful objects, jugs, vases, metal animals and fabrics all of which appear time and time again in my paintings. I still have a need to see what happens when I put, perhaps, a pink tin jug next to an orange cup. I have even managed to find a picture of a tea set that I drew when I was about 9 years old. I was obviously going to become either an artist or a teashop owner when I grew up. Holiday time always gets me drawing, and I have included some of these sketches. Although not a landscape artist, my eyes are always taking in angles of trees and rooftops, walls and fences.

Strong, straight lines against organic curves is a theme that runs through most of my work, and flowers are also a great source for this. Lilies with spiked leaves, tulips, of course, and amaryllis with large fleshy flowers balanced on stalks like celery sticks. Most of my still-life paintings begin with a flower or two and you will see quite a few amaryllis in the book in various poses; its the flower I cant resist buying and always end up painting. I have selected some pictures of what I call my breakaway work, where I have used different media and stepped away from watercolour for a while. I had a chance to work with a friend who taught me monoprinting and for several months I was completely absorbed by this medium. Then, little by little, a bit of collage crept in, and then some watercolour paint and the pictures became mixed media.

I then returned to watercolour and my usual subject matter. I had enjoyed producing monoprint landscapes, but it was still life that took me back to painting. Another breakaway project was some abstract painting completed when I was living in France. There again it surprised me that I went for landscapes but it seemed so right when I was living in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and fields. Amongst these breakaway pictures are some of my recent paintings in which I have tried to move away from my concept of bringing several objects together and binding them into a tight composition. I am now attempting to put more air into the pictorial space, separate the objects and form larger, quieter moments that are part paint, part graphite pencil and white paper.

Anyone who aspires to writing a book is usually told to stick to what they know, be it in their past or their day-to-day living. In putting this book together I have definitely taken that advice to heart but I also asked myself what sort of book would interest me. I would want a luscious, cant wait to see whats on the next page book. I remember feeling like this when I looked through a book about David Hockneys early drawings and one about Matisses wonderful cut-outs, produced right up to his death in 1954. All these images were so inspiring and gave me a feeling of closeness to the artist as they began or ended their search for that perfect piece of work. I hope you enjoy my scrapbook of images.

Putting it all together was quite an emotional roller coaster for me, reliving my youth, my impressions and memories of past and present work.