About Page
Welcome to Sophie Huddlestone’s website, a U.K. artist specialising in watercolours and expanding into oil paintings and mixed media.
Sophie has a swirly style of painting which makes it easy to spot one of her pictures.
Painting is oxygen
Painting is my oxygen, I don’t think I could survive without a paintbrush in hand. Even on our annual holiday the paintbrush is the first thing packed. My art studio is filled with beach themed items to re-create that holiday feeling. The comfort zone for me is definitely sploshing about with paint at my Leicestershire seaside.
“If the unspoken rules of how a painting should look were contained in a bottle, then I’m going to shake it, twist the lid, and let creativity burst out of my swirly brain regardless of the consequences” Sophie Huddlestone.
SH paintings
An interest in art began at 11 years of age with complex themes that were not your typical house, tree and rainbow. I was in ore of Salvador Dali and would daydream in his pictures for hours. The encouragement for my art at an early age was fantastic as I’d finally found something that I was good at. (It was unknown at that time that I had dyslexia and Irlen Syndrome).
In 2011 I picked up my paintbrush and the urge to create came back full throttle. An Artist career began. Twirling swirling brush stokes soon became my trade mark style.
Spreading smiles worldwide by adding a tiny hidden smile face in amongst the swirls in every painting. The paintings page has a close up image of one of these smiles.
I had two strings to my bow with contemporary animals and a surrealism streak, but the flowing ideas for the ‘weird’ artworks remained bottled up.
I began to use my married name of Huddlestone for artworks in 2018 (instead of Artist Sophie Appleton) and dared to include the more unusual art works combined with portraiture.
The portrait narratives are based on the complexity of hidden human emotions, adding messages within the art, aspects of past & present or things which will be very different in generations to come.
If a painting pulls you in for a longer gaze, perhaps your subconscious has already deciphered a connection with the artwork.
More examples on the portraits page.
Celebrity Commission
I often paint animal, bird and flower commissions but was a little nervous when asked to create my first portrait commission this March.
It was for Russell Osman – he acted in the film Escape to Victory, Indian Super league football expert, TV Co-commentator, former footballer for England etc. and I was thrilled when he displayed my portrait on his Instagram @russosman and his Twitter @RussellOs5 Given free reign to create the portrait with any theme I decided to combine his past film as the background, the England colours in the shirt he wore for the film and painting him as he looks today, plus some of my signature style swirly squiggles. To my relief he thought it was wonderful.
Own an artwork by Sophie Huddlestone
SHOP
As I specialise in one off hand painted pictures (original paintings) when it is sold that unique painting is gone, so don’t dilly dally. Buy direct from the artist in Sophie’s online shop. Original paintings and a small art prints range are available with postage worldwide. All items require a signature on arrival and a tracking code will be emailed to you.
The sale page may have a Surprise for you.
Contact Sophie for portrait and pet commissions.
Saatchi Art
A handful of Sophie’s original paintings are being sold at Saatchi Art. These paintings are also in Sophie’s online SHOP. You can also search for Sophie Huddlestone on Saatchi Art or https://www.saatchiart.com/sophieh
Contact
My art studio is gadget free so please leave a message if I don’t get back to you straight away.
Email: sixfootsophie@yahoo.com
Facebook messenger: @SwirlySophArt
Twitter @CreativeMrsH
Instagram @creativemrsh
Tel:07932 606867
All contact methods are on the contact page.
Social Media
Keep the comments coming otherwise my next post will not show up in your feed.
@creativemrsh
Artist Sophie Appleton Huddlestone
@CreativeMrsH
Snapchat
Lets add each other on Snapchat and we can view each others story. I’m creativemrsh on there. (No group chats – teens internet safety reasons).
Bio
Sophie specialises in portraits with a twist and animal paintings with a twirl. The swirly brush strokes makes it easy to spot a Sophie Huddlestone painting, the majority of collectors being from the U.S. and U.K.
The blue tinted glasses that Sophie wears are for Irlen Syndrome which could be the quirk that encourages the happy vibes in the colour combinations.
Having a degree with honours for industrial ceramics (Staffordshire University) and working with Wedgwood as a student, Sophie went on to sell pattern designs to Staffordshire Tableware. It was when she won the university’s Stuttgart surface pattern competition that the love and enthusiasm for creating swirly artworks took over the ceramics. Life events put painting on hold until her mid 30’s when the swirly artistic adventures began to unfold.
Past exhibitions have been at gallery’s in Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.
Currently Sophie’s artworks remain on display in all the corridors of Vision House in Leicestershire. With future exhibitions being on hold due to raising a family Sophie prefers online displays, and has sold artworks to a few well known U.K. celebrities along the way, such as the Author Lynda Page and England Footballer / sports commentator Russell Osman.
Also in 2019 Saatchi Art (the worlds leading art gallery based in Los Angeles) includes a selection of artworks by Sophie Huddlestone.
Sophie’s App
I was thrilled to have my app approved to be on the list of available phone apps on the App Store and Google Play. It is called Swirly Soph Art and is available for free on the App Store and Google Play. New art on a live feed, occasional quiz competitions, live chat, app users art on display, discount codes on the bargains section etc. On a tablet search for it in the list of ‘phone’ apps.
Swirl Away
A few examples of pages on this website are below. Or swirl towards the main menu above for the main pages such as commissions, portraits, prints, paintings, shop etc.