Studio Notes no. 177

painting books, ink drawing & small stories

Hello Everyone,

Hope you have had a good week. I am keeping this one relatively short as suddenly it is Sunday again - and I have had less time to write this week.

Virginia Woolf books with roses - a new book page painting (25cm x 21cm) Yes, Woolf loved roses and she wrote of gardens and roses.

It’s been a while since I painted a small stack of books! How did I let that happen. Several years ago now I made a painting series featuring various book stacks, all from my personal favourites. Books in paintings are not an original idea owned by me, but I did start to see more and more of the same - so I decided to take a break from the idea. But I return to my stacks of books, because what is home, life or anything without a stack of books? Even the shabbiest, or perhaps the best stack is rather shabby, well-read. (Perhaps you can tell I am a bit tired because I am rambling here, but I hope you get the point).

I would like to write more about Virginia Woolf - but I want to look back over previous mentions of her work and world. Then I may write more. VW is one of my favourite writers, absolutely. I have about seven most favourite writers and they have probably all been featured in book paintings. Now, that is almost an invitation for you to go on a ‘scavenger hunt’ looking at my older paintings, noting authors etc.. And yes perhaps I will have to do some kind of competition where you tell me who my favourite authors/books might be. Watch this space…

**

Shop News

photo: A Charming Summer - a new concertina ink drawing

New works on paper - a shop update today at 7pm UK time - you may preview everything now.

Next update: Wednesday 4th June at 7pm - a new collection of tiny paintings

There is a link to my shop at the end of these notes

Sketchbooks

I do not have any new pages to share with you - but hope there will be some for next time. Instead, I had a look at my archive of sketchbooks to see what sparked my interest. Here are a few that make me think: oh yes, let me play around with those ideas again. That’s the beauty of sketchbooks - the endless store of ideas, their longevity and energy captured for you to call upon when needed.

photo: sketchbook from 2018 -

love the layers and texture. I remember I really did layer up on these pages, with the paint working to hold it all together. The linen - yes I love to paint on linen scraps. It was because I decided to stick bits of linen in my sketchbooks and painted over them that I then went on to create my tiny paintings.

photo: pages from 2022 - so more recent. Again enjoying the textures but also the dynamic shapes. The rich colours with the pale.

If you enjoy looking at my past work and reading my notes/thoughts - I am writing a series of ‘looking at the archives’ for paid subscribers, shared in my midweek notes sent out on Thursdays.

**

Small Stories

I share these stories as small glimpses into my world - my day-to-day creative life and looking back. They should be read as small fictions. Thank you always for reading.

Yellow Dress

Nothing seems to happen in the rooms across the road, the top floor of a Georgian building. Once I saw a woman open and then close the blinds, as if testing that they worked. But in the past few days a yellow dress has appeared - it hangs against a window on a white hanger. Is it waiting for some special event, or simply abandoned for now? I have no way of knowing if it is indeed the only garment in the whole flat, or one of many. I imagine the waiting, expectation. Old or new? From this distance it could fit any purpose. A sleeveless dress, unremarkable but good for warm weather. Might work with accessories for a wedding. Another day goes by. The yellow dress appears to flutter ever so slightly, momentarily woken, though the window, as always, is closed.

**

Fairies

The air is thick with pollen, with fairy fluff, splitting clocks swirling in the sky. Walking down the street, in my exertion to catch the traffic lights, I swallow a fairy. I come home and drink glass after glass of water. Looking out of the kitchen window I see the fairies rise and disperse, rise again. Watching them for a few minutes lends my mind the ability to see them as sentient beings. These fairies have thoughts, a sense of anarchy. They ride the warm air and speak only in whispers to any other they might encounter, mingling, re-imagining their size and mission. Some break their own hearts on roof tiles, others rise up and up, chasing pigeon air traffic. The fairies are taking over, I tell my son and look out from his bedroom window, yet we see none at all.

***

Black Pepper

Though I am a reluctant cook, a cook of necessity, I enjoy certain vital ingredients and the rituals of them. I love to add a pinch of coarse black pepper to mostly anything. Yes, even sweet things. My fingers get coated with tiny black specks. The smell of warmed pepper takes me back, back to being a very young child. My toddler sister and I would disappear from Granny’s kitchen and walk to a friend’s house at the other end of the lane. We had no fear of strangers, but loved to wander down the hill, down the steps. At our friend’s house we would always be invited in. Their mother, an Italian woman, would have us sit quietly whilst she cooked their meal - and telephoned our grandmother to say we had appeared again. She seemed always to be cooking, the lovely Italian mother, and the smell of pepper seemed so very exotic. Granny used pepper as an afterthought. The pepper in the cruet set was seldom in use; the grey powder was what I thought dead people might eat. Granny was a plenty of salt cook. A big tub of branded salt on the kitchen counter. Yes, I love salt too, I love salt and black pepper.

***

photo: bottles on blue with an angel painting - a new book page painting - this will also be in my shop today

Thank you for reading here and for subscribing. If you enjoyed reading these notes please let me know by liking (pressing that heart) and you are welcome to leave a comment, or email me. I am always grateful to hear from you. These Sunday notes will always be sent free to everyone who subscribes. If you would like to support my writing further, you might like to become a paid subscriber (I send out additional notes, and occasional videos, midweek) or you might like to buy me a coffee, thank you.