Barbara Payne studied ceramics at Bournemouth College of Art in the 1970s and afterwards for many years made mugs in a shed. Coming up for air in the late 90s she ventured out to Abingdon College and Sunningwell School of Art to try to learn to paint … and has been enjoying painting enormously ever since.

Her subjects are usually landscapes or still life, or sometimes people; using acrylics, which she loves; the use of dry brush, rollers, glazes, drawing and printing can all add to the complex broken colour effect she finds exciting. She is currently involved with Blewbury Thursday Art Group.

She’s also involved in folk music and morris dancing, bell ringing, writing and reading poems, looking for glow-worms on summer nights, and driving her Morris Minor.

Barbara likes sheds. She lives in a wooden 1930s bungalow her grandfather built just outside Cumnor, with her husband Pete (churchwarden, railway buff, canal enthusiast, largely silent) and cat Sophie (long-haired, black and white, talkative).

For this Artweeks she explores the ideas, dreams and inspirations behind the artwork.