Toni Watts: Art & Illumination – Medieval Techniques in Modern Application

Toni Watts was the speaker for our final social evening of 2018.  Toni has a great interest in using natural colours and took us through how she makes her own paints and what she uses to produce them. She showed slides of some of the beautiful manuscripts belonging to Lincoln Cathedral and had also brought along some of her own work.

We all fell in love with the little koala bear sitting on a beautifully illuminated letter ‘K’. What an illuminating evening Toni gave us, a perfect way to round off the year. 

Perhaps surprisingly, art was not her first career choice. She trained first as a doctor, then became a wildlife artist and then moved into art and illumination becoming artist in residence at Lincoln Cathedral. Toni described her working life as medic, wildlife artist, someone who sticks gold on things and wondered what her next career move might be. We wait with bated breath and if there is another career move, hope Toni will come back and tell us about it. 

Pam Robinson’s full account of this evening will appear in the next edition of the Inc.