Tracy Kelly

Tracy Kelly loved art as a child, then life took over and years passed without it. What brought her back was her daughter. When her daughter began putting together a portfolio for a university application, Tracy went along to the life drawing classes with her, and remembered how much she had loved it.
She calls herself a hobbyist, but a determined one. She is teaching herself oils with help from friends and online tutorials, and has recently started casting flowers in plaster to make bas relief pictures. It is a fussy process, choosing the right flowers, getting the plaster to the right consistency, avoiding air bubbles, but a rewarding one, and she has been pleased with the results. She uses wild flowers gathered from the countryside where she lives.
The casting work was inspired by Rachel Dein, who exhibits at the Chelsea Flower Show. In painting, she admires the portrait artists Christian Hook and Jacob Dhein. She often paints alongside her friend Katharyn, the two of them cheering each other on. One breakthrough they shared was an online portrait lesson worked entirely in greyscale, which forced them to think in terms of tonal values rather than colour.