I was born in Holland, Velsen (3rd May 1976). I left Holland in 1994/1995 to take a year out of studying after Senior School. For about 6 months, I ended up as an au pair in London. I loved London so much that I decided to continue my studies there, I studied music and psychology for a while, but due to a massive Rheumatism flare up I had to stop studying. I continued to live in London for 10 years (mostly in Brixton & Streatham). When I was offered a great job in a British International School in Colombia Sri Lanka I moved there for 2.5 years with my now husband Andy Mason who did conflict resolution work there. In early 2007 we moved back to the UK where we still live currently.

Devon in the South of England.

Though I’ve had formal art tuition of some sorts, I am mostly self taught. I’ve been creative since I was little. I have a vivid memory of drawing a cat with its paw up in Junior school and feeling very accomplished and ever so proud of it! Throughout my childhood music and art were an important part of my life; I took music, art and art history as a subject in Senior school (Berger Scholen Gemeenschap – Bergen, Holland) and studied the subjects as part of my final year exams. After graduating from Senior school (VWO in Dutch) I applied for 2 art schools and was accepted for both, one in Enschede and one in Amsterdam, I went to the one in Amsterdam (Hogeschool voor de Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam). Sadly I didn’t enjoy my time there and left after a year.

Since then I’ve been mostly self taught. The materials I used most in the past were acrylics/ pastels/ watercolours on paper, canvas or canvas board (in art school we used oils but I didn’t enjoy working with oils). Since 2004/ 2005 my art become much more mixed media. I started art journaling in 2005-06 after I found an art journaling community on livejournal where I used to blog.

I taught drama, music and art to 2.5 – 11 year olds in an International Junior School in Sri Lanka for 2.5 years (Elizabeth Moir School). My main role there was to be the “extra curricular coordinator”, I organised sporting events, the schools art exhibition, directed (and at some point wrote!) the main school play and taught drama/ music and art to all age levels). It was a thrilling and rewarding experience.

Check out this blog post to read all about my favourite art supplies.

I started running my creative business full time in late 2008 when very few people were running online courses. If you click here you can read about some of the workings of my business and what equipment I use etc.

I do sometimes but I predominantly teach online as I have 2 young children. To see if I am involved in a ‘live workshop’ any time soon check this page.

I have an illness called rheumatoid arthritis. It is an autoimmune disease in which my immune system attacks my own joints. It means my joints can get inflamed. My hands have suffered some deformities which is what you may notice in the videos. I often wear my little finger-less gloves to ‘hide’ the deformities. While I have mostly accepted that my hands look different, I still sometimes wish they looked “normal”. However, I love my hands for what they are still able to do and I am extremely thankful for the mobility they still have. : ) I wrote a blog post about my hands HERE.

Send an email to us at hello@willowing.org and we’ll get back to you super quickly!

My life style and healing approach is very much influenced by the teachings of Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie, contemplating the nature of being and practicing presence, awareness and acceptance. For more information on these teachers: www.thework.com – www.eckhartolle.com

I am also a qualified hypnotherapist and nlp practitioner and use some ideas/ healing methods of hypnotherapy and nlp in my art courses that have a personal development element.

Yes, we offer downloadable content for all classes. Simply navigate to the videos, click on the links under videos and choose which options you want to download. 🙂

You do on self study courses and now (since 2018) on live collaborative courses like Life Book and Ever After. You can also download all content from the latter classes.

Please log in to the site (top left hand corner), then click on ‘my account’ to find all your classes.

Each class thread has information at the bottom of the page, please check your classes for this information.

Instantly! Once you’ve purchased the course you get immediate access to the content, simply log in above and click on ‘my stuff’ – you will then see your purchase (and free) course listed! yay!

Pretty much all of my courses take you through the creation of the paintings step by step and go into great depth. So all classes are suitable for beginners though those who have no drawing experience may initially need to repeat the earlier steps frequently to become used to drawing. The only course that isn’t suitable for beginners (though could still be joined by a beginner as I think the content is mighty useful) is Ever After – as this has a segment that focuses mostly ‘style development’ which is more relevant to more established artists.