Cecilia’s early years abroad had a profound effect on her work, both in terms of the imagery and the materials she prefers to use. The ancient and traditional artefacts she encountered in those countries led to a love of texture, of patina, of the sense of things being gradually revealed or uncovered.

Many of her preferrred materials are those which work well on european handmade rag papers or oriental plant papers, for example, ink, watercolour, charcoal, pastels. These media often translate into printmaking, also using a variety of papers; for example, etching, drypoint, monoprint and chine colle’. For her mixed media pieces which in a way seem to fall between painting or drawing and printmaking she will often include found materials both natural and man-made for their particular colours and textures and connotations.

In her larger work she uses oil paint on canvas or board: oils can be used transparently as glazes or be applied more thickly; either way oil paints give the wonderful glowing or jewel-like colours Cecilia loves to use. The slow drying quality of oils enable her to work on a painting over a considerable time, in contrast to the works on paper which are often done quickly and very spontaneously.