Two long weekends of Open Studios
:
24-26 MAY and 30 MAY-1 JUNE : 11am to 5pm daily
Hilary Jean Gibson
Direct Observational drawings and paintings en plein air and more imaginative works after research.
After a B.A.in Graphic Design at Saint Martin’s School of Art, London I worked as a freelance illustrator before moving to Cornwall.
I work mainly in pencil, but have done a lot of printmaking and love water based media.
I love to draw in historic houses and abandoned old buildings, fascinated by the stories they can tell. Here in Cornwall these are multi layered and often relate to mining. History, symbolism and writing are an important context within my practice and the blur between fact and fiction interests and inspires me.
As Artist in Residence at Godolphin National Trust 2008-2010, I researched and completed over 90 drawings for my first self-published book; ‘Godolphin’, the final piece for an MA in ‘Illustration : Authorial Practice’ 2010, UCF
Images often start in sketchbooks or on larger pieces of paper but always from direct observation, often the work is completed entirely in situ, and sometimes continues in the studio, however research and imagination play important roles.
Six commissioned drawings hang in Trelissick House, another National Trust property in Cornwall.
My originals hung in the Leach Pottery Museum where they were created for my book ‘Illustrations of the Leach Pottery, St Ives’ (2018) which won an Holyer an Gof Publishers’ award in 2019.
But I equally delight in drawing nature, and the folklore of plants is an endless inspiration within my drawings. This stems both from the garden and countryside I grew up in in Essex and from my first commissions as an Illustrator in 1979 which were monthly gouache paintings of plants for Popular Gardening Magazine.
A Trustee of The Friends of the Towans in Hayle, I regularly draw plants thriving in their stunning natural wildlife habitats on the three miles of protected sand dunes overlooking St Ives Bay on Hayle Towans, close to my home.
Studio 162
polteggan house
tremethick cross
penzance
cornwall
TR20 8UF
What3Words:
///odds.abolish.precluded
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07866899309
www.hilary-jean-gibson-illustrator.co.uk 
Also at this studio:
Studio information
Directions: Take A30 past Penzance to Mount Misery roundabout. Follow sign to St Just on the A3071. After 1 mile, turn right at Tremethick Cross, signposted Trengwainton Gardens. Polteggan House is about 1/2 mile on the right.
What3Words: odds.abolish.precluded
Some steps at studio entry point at rear of the house.
Parking on road in front of property.
Toilet facilities
Family friendly
Open all year round by appointment
Further information
Member of the Cornwall Crafts Association and the UK Coloured Pencil Society, my work has been exhibited in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and at the Mall Galleries, London.
I was delighted to become an Associate member of SGFA - the Society of Graphic Fine Art: the Drawing Society and a Fellow of the Society of Botanical Artists in 2022 and show with them at the Mall Galleries, London.
I'm also a member of the St Ives Society.
Artists nearby
Impasto and impressionist paintings of all sizes drawn from the beautiful gardens of Cornwall and imagined in paint
