The free-range artist

Christmas is over and I'm finally working on a few paintings. Today I finished one that has been languishing for well over six months. I also started another. That felt good. I did all this fuelled by double chocolate and raspberry brownies. I decided a couple of days ago that January would be the month I cut down on sugar. That lasted then.

I don't think I ever really liked the idea of having a pristine white studio space, shared with other hipsterish artists, seriously working away whilst we talked about gallery representation and listened to Autechre. I think I do much better working out of my living room, on my own, glass of cava just out of shot, Boromir getting shot by orcs on the TV in the background (and then dying beautifully) for what seems like the fifth time this Christmas. (Note to self, must find new box sets to watch whilst painting).

Across these two tables (one on loan from my brother, one from Ikea £14) are the collection of random and useful objects helping me work at the moment.

Candles, always.
Pile of Moleskine notebooks for journalling, notes, poetry etc
Pile of handmade paper.
Yellow A5 Finsbury Filofax (Xmas prezzie from mum and dad)
Nourishing reading matter.
Crime novel (January is all about crime fiction)
Brushes, paints etc
Feathers
Bright pink poster paint
Karma bubble bath bar from Lush (it smells amazing and every now and then I catch a whiff of it and just think mmmmm)
Knitted owl gloves made by mum. Slightly too small. They limit my hand movements somewhat but i am determined to break them in.
A little stuffed and stitched handmade mouse. Gifted to me by one of the tutors at work late last year when I was in the middle of a stress related meltdown.
Sharpie markers
Washi tape (a growing addiction)
Dirty paint water
Earphones
Course file for my classes
Pile of magazines inc County Living (even though I live in the middle of a large town) and The Simple Things. Both are essential for decent vision boarding and daydreaming about cosy fires, woodland walks, suppers that include all manner of rare and lovely foodstuffs and rugged yet sensitive blokes in fairisle jumpers.
Broken glass lampshade (cracked side facing the wall)

There. You can keep your sparsely furnished converted warehouses. This is all I need.

Sketchbook Pages

Printmaking

A weekend spent mono printing and labouring over my woodcut. Shoulders ache. Wood chippings everywhere. If it doesn't work I'm going to be really cross. The pencil is there to give you a sense of scale.

We're mono printing in class on Wednesday and I've decided that, as a primary source of inspiration, we are going to use birds as our imagery. Specifically, black, carrion birds. They just look so cool.

Sketchbook pages

The woodland scene tonal sketches have been done as preliminary groundwork for a much larger than normal watercolour painting. The first three pencil outlines are for my watercolour class next week, the theme is windows and doors- not for the first time am I wondering whether I have made things a bit hard for my poor students.

Rather annoyingly there is also a smudge of something on the lens of my camera which is very noticeable in the first three images. What's a girl to do?

The flat hunt is on hold for a bit. It was taking up all of my emotional energy and my attitude towards my art had been "I'll just wait until I'm settled somewhere new and then I'll make a start". I hadn't even realised I'd done this until a week ago when I realised I hadn't painted anything for ages. No wonder I was feeling a little fraught. And dreaming about Farrow and Ball painted walls.

Sketchbook Pages

Current creative obsessions.

A very short post as i'm in the middle of class planning for this week. The lino cut in the top two photos is part of the prep for my Creative Sketchbook class. The last time i taught lino cutting i was in the middle of showing my students how to safely cut lino when, with perfect comic timing, i promptly sliced the top of my finger off. I shall try to be more careful this time. Dad informed me a few weeks ago that there were wood cutting tools lurking somewhere in the cobwebby shed, i may seek them out this weekend. I love printing. I can become quite obsessive about it when I get started. I have plans for these little woodland scenes so they shall be useful.

There are more blackberries too, another little obsession. The work I produce for myself during term time usually start off as class samples and then i take them away and develop them further. There have been 5 classes so far this term on hedgerow delights and, frankly, i'm a little sick of the subject matter now. However, this little darling is nowhere near finished.

The books in the bottom image are finally finished and stitched together. Sorry about the orangey glow in the photos. I'm struggling to get pictures taken before the light fades, i may have to invest in a daylight bulb for the winter months, or just take all my pictures on my days off.

I think perhaps i need to schedule blog posts. Maybe Monday will be what i did over the weekend and Friday what i did during the week. I'll give it a try. I would be the first to admit that this little creative venture feels a little shambolic at the moment.

Some sketchbook work, some context, one spider.

Thought I'd give you a bit of context this evening. Back in March I was mercilessly dumped by the man I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with. Hey ho. Never mind. So, I'm back at Ma and Pa's, and they have been lovely. It's been a fairly grim summer (I'm a master of understatement) but I am, I think, finally emerging into the light, though the thought of Autumn, Winter and a box of carefully chosen and romantically bought Christmas decorations in the garage fill me with foreboding.

The point of this little exercise in explanation is too ask whether, at 30, I am too old to be knocking on my parent's bedroom door at 10.30pm and asking, in a small voice, "are you still awake?", "yes" was the reply, followed by "why?", "because there's a really big spider on my bedroom wall".

Dad hastily donned his dressing gown and disposed of the beast out of the landing window. And it was huge, I promise you. Perhaps I should have explained when I moved back in that it was on the understanding that spiders would be dealt with by the man of the house.

I have a day off work tomorrow and plan to do some more sketchbook work. I have little in the way of large paintings started, so I thought I'd use the next few weeks of quiet to plow through some sketchbook pages. The above doodles look a little windblown and desolate I think.