Linda Foster
Based near Berwick upon Tweed, I was born and spent my childhood in North Yorkshire and have enduring memories of the countryside there.
I studied textile design in Birmingham following on with a post graduate year studying industrial knitting. The products of my final year all sold to the USA and this inspired me to set up as an independent knitwear designer working from a studio based at home. Most garments were commissioned by individuals, but a range of wear based on traditional Fair Isle designs sold to the Shetland Islands for several years. I never stopped painting and drawing, selling the occasional piece of work via word of mouth but eventually ceased my knitwear business as life took a different path for a number of years.
I moved to this area 8 years ago and decided to invest in a studio which is now built and looks out over to the sea in the distance and I have returned to my former passion of watercolour painting
My Inspiration
Whatever individual landscape I paint I am influenced by wide sweeps of mountains, moorland and sea and then fascinated by the detail of drystone walls, rock outcrops and lichens. This counterpoint of detail within expansive space coupled with the alchemy of watercolours themselves has excited and inspired me throughout my life.
I enjoy painting wet in wet which I believe gives the colours the greatest opportunity to add their own individuality to my work. I prefer a limited palette of colours which I feel gives me the chance to catch the nuance in a landscape which is constantly changed by the light and shadow of the natural elements.
