About

About the artist
Tania Long was born and grew up in Hertfordshire, England,youngest of four.

A childhood spent roaming free in the countryside there, and on the North Yorkshire coast, helped focus a love of nature and the sea.
As part of a family where creativity was actively encouraged, she fell in love with art and writing from a very early age. After gaining a B.A. degree in Illustration and Design at Harrow College, and living in London for several years,Tania moved to Sussex by the sea, where she continues to paint, write, make things,play music and sing.

She also set up a Creative Network in Eastbourne in 2005, please see the website at www.spanglefish.com/creativeco-opcommunity

Mission statement
I believe that art can be any or all of the following:
Uplifting, thought provoking, beautiful, magical, mysterious, joyfull,enjoyable, fun, entertaining; accessible to all.
The world is a wonderful, magical place. If I can make some one stop and think, just bring a smile to their face, or help them ‘see’ the world differently, thats great. If I can encourage others to bring out their own creativity,have a go themselves,thats wonderful.

I believe that everyone is an artist,creative in some way,and  one of the most joyful and fulfilling things you can do for yourself is to let your creativity out.Please see my Creative Joy Workshop page.

Favorite materials and techniques.

I like using watercolours,coloured pencils and wax crayons on paper,sometimes with other media mixed in such as collage.When I am painting on canvas I prefer acrylics and glitter paints.One of my favorite techniques is marbeling paper/wet in wet and then just seeing what images appear out of it. The 'Sleeping Mermaid ' was made this way from an accidental inkblot. The Shoal of Mermaids evolved from a wet on wet experimental painting. Once it had dried I could see the mermaids in it so worked on it to bring them out with coloured pencils.

I love working with wax crayons and water colour resist, the end result is never quite predictable which makes it all the more fun. My 'Mercat' was made this way.

A third favorite is 'glue etching', where white ares of paper are first painted with gouache or water soluble glue and then washed over with ink when dry. Then the whole thing is scrubbed under water, revealing a kind of negative image. The 'Moonstone' picture was made this way.

I also love to paint to music, as the music and rythms look like colours to me.

Artist Painting Tania performance painting
	Stir things up!
Artist and friend Susi at show for eastbourne festival in the Yoga Life studio,Eastbourne Enterprize center,April 2009.	Making fairies & mermaids at my show for eastbourne festival 2011 at Leaf Hall, Eastbourne
Mabs magic This is my little black cat, Mab. Here you can see she is up to magic mischief, making fish swim out of my painting!	Recycled journals Here you can see recycled journals pages being painted. The pages are cardboard cut from teabag boxes. I cover them in gesso first and then paint them.