Journey Begins

Hey there! I am the artist behind Marinova Creative. I thought it would be great to share with you all my journey as an artist and how I got to where I am.

I have always ADORED everything about art. I love making, learning and exploring as much I can, at every opportunity. It was a no brainer when I decided to study Art at University. I was so excited at the prospect of being able to do art all day and see how skills developed. Fast forward 4 years and my degree show final piece was a 3D – video – painting installation. This was the start of ‘Marinova’, something I will detail in future blogs.

This kind of art was something I never thought I would achieve as I was always so obsessed with perfect looking drawings. I had the best years of my life at University. I felt so content and happy at doing what I loved all day every day.

Like most graduates, I was left with the gut wrenching feeling of what am I going to do now?

After university I was working at a coffee shop full time and went from having the best time of my life, to having a bit of an existential crisis.

Teaching was something I had always considered. I had always wanted to be a primary school teacher growing up, but after working at a nursery part time during uni, I realised that wasn’t for me. I wanted to do art all day and I enjoyed working with young people, so I applied for my Art Secondary PGCE. I couldn’t believe it when I was offered a place to study at UCL on the spot. I only decided to go to the interview the night before as I was convinced I wouldn’t get in.

A great life lesson learnt!

I was doing what I loved again, making, learning and exploring Art. Although it can of course be challenging, I was loving being a teacher. I left work most days happy and had spent the whole day smiling. It is a very rewarding job to see young people learn and grow and become confident because of the impact you have had on them.

I was however, missing doing my own art. I started spending evenings and weekends drawing and painting portraits again. Portraiture was something I had always been obsessed with. This started from childhood when I would make birthday and Christmas cards for my family and draw their portraits on them. I was super proud of my new portraits and could see I have improved so much!

(Slideshow below)

Then 2020 hit and the world had changed. Life was put on hold, devastation hit many and of course, schools closed. While I was working from home, I saw on Instagram the #portraitsforNHSheroes started by the artist Tom Croft. I immediately wanted to take part and be able to give back something for the heroic work NHS staff have done (and always do) during the coronavirus pandemic. I was overwhelmed with messages from NHS staff so I decided to do 2 free portraits (see below).

I enjoyed all the interaction with people on Instagram I got in response to these portraits. This made me want to start taking my Art on Instagram seriously. Although I had always done portraits, I was becoming uninspired by it. I wanted to create Art that is more experimental and expressive – like what I was doing at Uni. I had been teaching my students abstract art techniques and I really enjoyed doing it so began to experiment. I took the plunge and spent A LOT of money on paints and canvasses. I painted for months and months in a small section of my bedroom I call my studio. I live in a very small flat so my bedroom is the only place I can paint! Almost 1 year in the making, my vision of Marinova Creative has become a reality. My style of art has evolved to reflect my crazy idea of Marinova and I am so proud of what I have done.

There have been more failures than successes starting up my own business and a lot of hard work. It has been difficult balancing working as a full time teacher with starting up a small business. I would get home from teaching all day to then working in the evenings on my artwork.

Thank you so much to anyone who has supported me in any way. Everything goes such a long way. Even a follow, like or share. THANK YOU. You are making Marinova Creative a reality and my dream of becoming an artist come true.