Studio notes no. 182

sketchbooks, monoprints and small stories

Hello Everyone

I hope you have been well. Waking up to rain and cool air has been a terrific gift this morning - we have had too much heat just recently. Perhaps I should explain what my perfect summer looks like: a bit cloudy with sunshine mixed in, a gentle breeze: cardigan weather. Would that suit you too?

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My work is always evolving and I am pleased to know that many people connect with this - the desire to explore various ideas over time. Over the last few decades I have worked with paint, stitch, ink, clay sculpture, paper sculpture, spinning yarn, knitting - and there’s so much more I want to do. I am grateful to you for checking in with me via these studio notes and I hope you find them interesting, perhaps inspiring.

photo: recent sketchbook pages - combining monoprint drawing, ink drawing and collage/painting.

I am very pleased to be sharing with you new sketchbook pages and new monoprint artworks - two things (related) that I have really, really wanted to successfully put together, in a way that pleases me - and I have!

Over and over I say here and elsewhere: sketchbooks are at the heart of what I do. They have been for many years. Yet in recent times it has somehow been more tricky to find time for them. Perhaps it is updating my shop twice a week. Perhaps also all the other things. But here we are, I have found myself back at the cutting and sticking, giving the pages hours of dedication.

photo: recent sketchbook pages - here are monoprint elements with painting/collage

photo: sketchbook pages - again combining monoprint drawing with painting/collage and ink drawing. Here the focus is on the painting/collage with bold shapes of vessels. I am working toward a new series of painting/collage works and making these pages has helped me see ways forward.

As you can see, I have spent some time making monoprint drawings - as these are something I used to make more than I do now and for a while I have wanted to get back into them. But for several reasons what I did just did not feel right to me. With all good intentions I would set up my drawing space, get my drawing needle, etc.. and it just was not working - it felt forced, too pre-planned. The lines in a monoprint drawing need a certain energy and life. So, not wishing to waste materials, I would pack things away and try ‘another day’.

I’ve now realised a few things - you just have to be patient. Also the right combination of paper and ‘ink’ really can make a difference. In my case, I have most recently been using bamboo sketch paper and water-mixable oil paint as my ‘ink’. They seem to work for me.

Here are a few examples of a new series I have been working on. As you may tell, I have added washes of paint to lend further depth and atmosphere. I’ve used gouache on some, or just oil.

photo: A quiet afternoon - a new monoprint artwork

photo: are you coming to tea? A new monoprint artwork

photo: the visitor (figure in a landscape) - a new monoprint artwork

I am Looking forward to offering a selection of monoprints (these and more) in my shop. Please note: I have decided not to do an update today, for various reasons. So I am going to wait and offer the monoprints this coming Wednesday - along with new paintings.

Shop News

next update: Wednesday 23rd July 7pm UK time - preview all the new artworks from 4pm

I have been pleased with the response I have had to my recent paintings, thank you. I shall be continuing on with offering small and tiny paintings. This week I am taking a break from the tiny paintings to focus on the slighter larger ones.

Over the next few weeks I will be offering a variety of work in my shop - possibly just on Wednesdays for a while. The two updates a week can be intense. I’m not as young as I used to be etc…

Looking ahead to autumn: I am working toward having new postcard prints in my shop. Perhaps a zine (or two). And a new collection of embroidery. The embroidery will most likely be a one-off collection rather than a series of new work posted over weeks. So please check here to see when that will be available, if you are interested, to avoid missing out. Thanks always.

These are challenging times and in a crowded art market, I never take a single sale of my work for granted. I am grateful to everyone who collects my work, buys just one piece, collects postcards or simply hopes to buy something one day.

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Small Stories

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

Reeds

Down by the river, my son and I have been watching the ducks - and it is all female today - the ducks sleeping, with some swimming, one tetchy one who seems to be interested only in nudging everyone away from her. She nudges a moorhen, which is not typical; they tend to happily co-exist. Then my son hears the peep-peep sound of something on the other side of the bridge and he disappears, goes down the river bank to the water’s edge. I follow to see one, then three juvenile moorhens. They are no longer chicks but still dainty, climbing in the reeds, swimming momentarily only to climb back out to familiar green. I can only imagine how the thick reeds are a labyrinth of nests, dormitories. For a moment I see inside the twisted stem corridors, specks of light on water and sleeping feathers. That’s all I get before I have to return to the riverbank, the hot sun of this morning, two older women on the other side of the river wondering what it is my son is so enamoured about. One of the women totters down to the water to see.

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Please Climb Down

Please climb down, the well-spoken father says to the tall yet young boy who is standing on the very top of a rounded wooden sculpture. This is not a playground but a shopping street. It is not meant for you to be standing right there, the father says coolly. The boy must be about seven and is being encouraged by two friends. Now, I have asked you to get down, the father says, to the boy who is now fixed with arms outstretched and laughing. You don’t wish to be the boy with a broken arm on the last day of school! You don’t want your arm in a cast! You don’t want to be the broken arm boy! I smile at this, as does the boy who has suddenly been nudged into thinking of a whole new adventure.

I know what’s coming next - and can only smile when I hear: But I do want to be the broken arm boy! I walk on, knowing what might just happen. There are options the father has facilitated, and the boy is now weighing up. Is this an insight into how their relationship will always be, or just a moment of boyish fooling? I cannot see into their futures, but at least, I tell myself, the father cares.

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Bird eyes

Young jackdaws - they have been making noise by the attic kitchen window all morning and I have been loving it. I have been drawing and wondering. Their scuffling and chatter has wound itself into the radio music and chat. Now I am at the sink and can only capture a glimpse of the rascals, before I know they will flee from the roof tiles below. A few of them fly off but one stays a moment to give me eye contact, that grey eye of not quite knowing what it is that moves beyond. Not seeing but somehow reaching into my soul.

Later, I am sat in my armchair in the sitting room, spinning wool on a spindle, when I glance toward the window and see a young magpie - not watching me spin, that would be too daring perhaps - no, he is looking at what’s on the windowsill - looking into the insides of a paper doll’s house. He’s probably seen the spider family who dwell within the tiny curtains.

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photo: a peek inside my working space - painted papers and a pelargonium by the window

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photo: tea bowls series (7 - 12) - tiny paintings

You may have noticed over the past few weeks I have introduced a new painting series to my shop. This tiny series features tea bowls. Very much inspired by my love of ceramics and my own collection - with a few bird visitors, gentle sprigs and feathers. I shall be continuing on with this series over the weeks ahead, along with other paintings.

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