About Me

I AM A FLY ON THE WALL

I have been in love with drawing since I was in Second Grade and received my first fountain pen. From the moment I held it in my hand, I was enraptured with the potential it held to capture a scene or a feeling. It was an invitation to doodle, to race through my work early so I could fill all the extra space on the pages with my creations.

While pursuing a writing career, I continued to paint “on the side’, always feeling that painting was taking me away from “what I should be doing to pay the bills”. Now I combine both skills in my illustrated journal, which I have kept for many years, as well as other work in illustration and painting. My work has sold in galleries, as originals and as prints, on greeting cards and been published in books.

My family, (Daigle/Deagle ancestors) descended from original Acadian settlers at Port Royal, who started marrying into the Celts a century and a half ago. Although I have lived, travelled and worked in many parts of the globe, I live now in the city where I grew up: Dartmouth, My close connection to Nova Scotia provides fertile material for my art and writing. I am the author of a guidebook, The Maritime Provinces Off the Beaton Path, which went into six editions. I also wrote a novel, The Contingency Man. As well, I worked as a reporter in South East Asia and wrote for magazines and Newspapers here in Canada for many years.
I work in a number of different media:

  • Encre de Chine

  • line and wash with watercolour

  • gouache

  • acrylic

  • oil and mixed media

  • documentary film making

 

I have always told stories, whether in words or pictures.

My life is a creative journey. My body of work is an extension of many years as a journalist and writer, Whatever I draw or paint stems from the same impulse that compelled me to write: the story. Always, my point of departure is to ask myself: “What is the story here that I want to tell?”

I may use different media to tell that story, but the challenge of showing it is always centre of mind.

I try to draw every day, even when I’m working on a larger project. I prefer working from life, en plein air, so I do a lot of urban sketching, challenging myself to capture an image on the fly, in those fleeting moments when life reveals itself. When sketching, around town, I must confess to eavesdropping, which sometimes reveals the story behind the drawing. An embedded journalist, after all, whether an illustrated journalist or a newspaperwoman is a fly on the wall.