Wendy White

Wendy was born in Hampshire, England. When she was not exploring the surrounding landscape with her siblings, she was always creating art and crafts. Her career choice was always to attend art college but unfortunately that opportunity had to wait until 2012. When After 34 years working in administration and management accounts, she applied to Southampton Solent University and graduated three years later with a BA (Hons) 1st in Fine Art.

It was during her first summer break that Wendy stumbled over the medium egg tempera. Experimenting with different mediums had aggravated her asthma and after watching a documentary on American artist Andrew Wyeth, she made the decision to specialise in this ancient medium. Wendy spent hours researching the techniques for producing ‘true gesso’ and preparing panels. The medium is created by mixing egg yolk, pigment, and water. Applying the paint to surface is also complex and time consuming, but this is what Wendy loves best. The medium appears as a glaze and dries very quickly, so each brush stroke is cross hatched onto the surface and layers are built up to create colour. The finished painting enables light to penetrate through the surface creating an unusual effect, and the surface once dry is exceptionally durable, non-yellowing and stable for centuries, making a coat of varnish unnecessary.

Between 2015 and 2024 Wendy juggled her family life, a second job and her art career, which consisted of everything from exhibitions, commissions, and teaching. Wendy believes everyone should be able to own a piece of original art and has created two painting trails of small landscape paintings, which were then placed in situ on a coastal and canal footpath, where people could treasure hunt them for free. Wendy loves hearing about the discovery of these artworks and the location of their new home, both in the UK and abroad. She will be creating a new painting trail here in north Wales in 2027.

With a son in the military and herself an ex adult instructor and officer in the Army Cadet Force, Wendy also continues to donate and gift copyright for commissioned military paintings to Armed Forces charities to help raise money through the sale of prints.

2023 to 2025 Wendy and her partner travelled around Wales looking for a place to retire. It was during those days, without a studio space and little room in Angus the campervan, that she started experimenting with cyanotype photography. Each cyanotype original artwork is created by using the cyanotype process and a negative image created from her drawings and photography in the area.

Now living on the outskirts of Betws Y Coed, Wendy is creating a new body of work inspired by the diverse landscape of Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park. The collection includes original cyanotype artwork and a series of original paintings which combine both egg tempera and cyanotype medium on the same panel. This combination of two processes reduces dramatically the time it takes to produce an artwork but also gives the work a more contemporary and textured appearance making each painting unique.

To add to this collection of work, Wendy has found that by coating scallop shells with true gesso, she can add a cyanotype image to the surface, and she uses up any scraps of cyanotype paper by moulding paper mache bowls

Contact Wendy