Studio Notes no. 181

new mixed media works & small stories

photo: Meadow sisters - a new mixed media artwork on paper - pencil, coloured pencil, watercolour and ink

Hello Everyone

I hope you are well. This week has been one of extreme heat, followed by welcome cooler weather. With more heat on the way. I do find the very hot weather challenging - it makes me feel quite claustrophobic. On the hottest evening this week I sat by an open window reading Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway (read many times - as it never gets uninteresting). Somehow reading about a woman buying a pair of long gloves, in a London shop, about one hundred years ago, made me feel less stifled. How this works, I suppose, is not to be worried over. It was just being distracted enough.

This week as I worked on my tiny paintings, I was tempted to paint a snowman - indeed I even thought: let’s just do a Christmas in July thing! But it did not happen. I decided instead to paint my friends the birds and they took me to shady gardens. I realise I neglect to show you my tiny paintings here - such is the timing of things. But yes, I am painting tiny paintings and offering them in my shop most Wednesdays.

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Over the past several days I have been working on new drawings and new mixed media artworks on paper (see above photo). I am particularly excited to share these with you. They are exciting, for me, as I have been using and mixing media I might not always use: pencil, coloured pencil, watercolour and ink. But something is opening up - a new path created by months of drawing and thinking, working quietly.

Sketchbook

Before making any of these new artworks, however, it was important for me to work in my sketchbooks. So I made a small book with sketch paper, a simple sewn binding, and filled the book with spontaneous, intuitively made drawings. I used a variety of media to get a feel for some possibilities.

Once the book was filled, I made a short video and shared this in my midweek notes for paid subscribers. The video will be available for anyone interested to see via my YouTube channel next week.

Here are a few of the sketches I made in this small book.

You can see how I am playful - but the book is also so useful

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photo: portrait of a woman in blue - a new mixed media artwork on paper - here I used pencil, coloured pencil and ink. The blue is a little tricky to photograph as it is cobalt blue leaning toward an aqua.

Can you see how the ideas have evolved? The playfulness is still here but in a more thoughtful, quiet way, perhaps.

Shop News

I am updating my shop today, Sunday 6th July at 7pm UK time - new mixed media artworks and new ink drawings.

Future update: Wednesday 9th July - new tiny paintings.

Yes, this is the pattern of things for the summer (works on paper on Sunday, tiny paintings on Wednesdays) - I will be taking breaks now and then, but will always let you know here.

You can preview all the new artworks in my shop now - there is a link at the end of these notes.

photo: summer walk with kitten - a new mixed media artwork on paper

The careful layering of ideas and media takes time and thought. Yet still I want to allow a flow and light into the work. I used pencil, coloured pencil, ink and watercolour here. I feel it is my favourite of the these new works - but there will be more to come in the future.

photo: Woman in interior with flowers and dolls house - a new drawing

I am enjoying working with a variety of media, yes, but I will always want to make pencil-only drawings. They are very special to me.

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Small stories

I write small stories inspired by my day-to-day creative life and observations. These should be read as small fictions. Thanks always for reading.

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Tea & Song

Early morning, two mugs of tea, both for me, I can be forgiven for believing I live on the edge of a village and not in the centre of a busy town - just listen to the birds, even in July, how they call and sing in their first daylight hours. Some of the birds are easy to identify from my armchair - even if I were to look out I would not see them, for many are just above or too far below, like angels with their trumpets pointing elsewhere, the birds have no mind to entertain me, they are all about themselves, their stories to share with one another.

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Petticoats

Down by the river, as far as the ducks are concerned it’s ladies day. All the Drakes, except for one shy chap, have gone upstream or downriver. The females vary in size, with many youngsters now appearing. We never did see ducklings. They must have been raised in a quieter bend. Now we see there were ducklings, just not on show for us. We watch as the mother ducks keep her girls in line: nudging awake, coaxing to rest, pulling at tail feathers as if making her daughter’s petticoats decent.

A solitary moorhen walks along the bank where the young ducks are curled in sleep, picking its way through the grass, looking for crumbs in the thick green. Elsewhere the grass has been cut to extinction. A small electric vehicle comes along the footpath and finds itself in the wildflower patch. I don’t like the look of this, one man says to the other, what are we supposed to be doing here?

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Friends

Down by the river, my son and I are once again having our coffee break. We watch two juvenile magpies dive-bombing sleeping pigeons. They never seem to get bored of this enterprise, but the pigeons are certainly bored of them. There he is, there’s my friend E-! An elderly woman calls out and my son waves, hello he says and turns to me, whispers: she’s one of our regulars.

The elderly woman has long grey pigtails and walks with the help of a shopping trolley. She has come from the nearby older people’s residence and is now walking along the river and will cross the small footbridge to walk into town. Hello my friend, how are you? She stops and chats with my son. It seems she is a regular visitor at the charity shop where he volunteers several days a week. This is not the first time someone shop-related has stopped to chat with my son. He will always make time for people. I am glad to be ignored as they talk on and on. What makes my heart most glad is how people accept my son, his way of talking, not always making much eye contact, is no hindrance to them. They see him in a world that might not.

I watch the pigeons lining up on the bridge railing: they have spied someone they know.

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Leopard print

A woman in a leopard print dress is leaping across the car park. Her bare feet barely touch the dusty asphalt. Why does she have no shoes? I cannot know. All I can tell from my attic window is that she is an incredible mover, a silent slow-motion sprinter. When she reaches her destination, will she find shoes? Or are shoes irrelevant to her?

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photo: blue flower - a new ink drawing, a concertina-style work

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