Sarah Bee
A deep dive into the creative life and influences of one of our artist-tutors - the utterly brilliant and wonderfully talented Sarah Bee.
Sarah worked as a graphic designer at the National Magazine Company and later worked as a body painter and makeup artist for commercial photography.
Sarah studied painting at the Heatherly School of Fine Art in London and painted with the Blockley Group. The Heatherly was founded in 1845 and is one of the oldest independent art colleges in London. It is also among the few art schools in Britain that focus on portraiture, figurative painting, sculpture and printmaking.
Now focusing entirely on Painting Sarah was elected to the pastel society in 2005 and has won numerous awards including the 2019 Derwent Award, the 2019 Artists’s publishing company award, the 2019 unison colour award and the 2014 Caran d’Ache Award.
Sarah’s expressive work conveys light, atmosphere and texture by using a layered combination of different media culminating in soft pastel.
Quick Q&A
What is your approach to teaching?
Through regular demonstration and individual tuition I share ideas and encouragement to enable artists to progress their painting practice.
What inspires your work?
My work is inspired by the visual commotion of the landscape, and in my painting I strive to capture the interplay of light, atmosphere and texture. Ultimately, it’s the challenge of portraying the various juxtapositions of the natural world which excites me… the scratchiness of undergrowth next to a flat expanse of sea or the gnarly trunk of a tree against a brooding sky.
COOMBE COURTYARD SESSIONS
A carefully selected playlist of music Sarah loves.
Which Artist is inspiring you at the moment and why?
Which artist is inspiring you at the moment and why?
There are so many! I'll limit them to two... David Tress and Joan Eardley.
Tress paints with massive energy, and is an excellent draughtsman. He manages to portray the excitement of the landscape with his wonderful wild markmaking and disrupted realism.
Joan Eardley was such a force. Again... fantastic energetic markmaking and inspirational use of colour in her landscapes.
The landscape has a powerful impact on my being...it is a deep understanding between me and my surroundings in which I feel simultaneously taken into it, and it into me. So hard to describe as a feeling..but the energy in this communication is what I attempt to convey in my painting. Very occasionally I feel it is there..just a little bit..but I think I'll strive for it forever. To me, both Tress and Eardley have that energy in their work. They convey the essence, the magic, and the excitement by becoming one with their subject. It is uncontainable and has no 'edges'...lost and found, disrupted realism. So by the use of colour and mark making they help the viewer to glimpse into the soul of their subject....THAT is what I would like to do!
READING LIST
I asked Sarah about some of her favourite books, here’s the list to research and inspire!
Paintings for a distracted world by John Seed
The journey of Self Discovery by Amit Pagedar
A Sense of Place by Patrick Elliot with Anne Galastro
SARAH’S COURSES AT COOMBE
When teaching at Coombe, Sarah focuses on the landscape, which provides unending opportunities to interpret observed light, texture and energy. During her courses participants use a layered mixed media approach, which Sarah takes everyone through each day, culminating in pastel. Her approach, as with all our tutors, is to demonstrate each process on a daily basis and during each day she gives regular one to one advice and tuition.
This is the foundation of Sarah’s practice and of her teaching.