Studio Notes no. 187

last of the summer flowers & tiny stories

Hello Everyone,

photo: a new mixed media flower painting - this one will be in my shop later today

This week I have been working on such a varied range of projects - and several of them I am not able to say much about at this moment, which is just the way things go when working toward exhibitions and future things.

I enjoy working on lots of different things - so long as they are managed well. I don’t feel a lack of focus. Over time I have learned to be quite disciplined about giving things a certain amount of my time and then leaving them. It is the leave it alone bit I have learned from the most.

I used to be a fussier type - anxious to finish what I had started all in one day. Often this led to regret. It is no good rushing me, I tell myself. Put it away. Come back to it with fresh eyes.

This past winter into spring, feeling low as I often do at that time of year, I found crumbs of time to write a cheerful story. The story became quite long, perhaps a novella. The other morning I woke up and remembered it - oh yes, I have that story to look at again. I was trying to remember the name of one of the main characters. The story has been shuffled right back, back into the cobwebs of my mind. That’s where it has been and where it will stay for now. Sometimes it takes years for me to return to things. I hope next winter/spring I will find crumbs of time to work a second draft of the story.

I am grateful to have these notes to share my writing and thoughts with you. If you would like to read more then please do consider becoming a paid subscriber - this past Thursday I shared a post about birds in my artwork.

photo: deep red sunflowers - a recent gouache painting on paper (currently available)

Shop News

My shop has a flower-focus this week - I added six gouache paintings on paper this past Wednesday. Today I am adding a trio of mixed media paintings on handmade supports.

next shop updates then:

Sunday 31st August - 7pm UK time - a trio of new mixed media paintings - preview now

Wednesday 3rd September - 7pm UK time - new drawings, monoprint artworks - preview from 4pm

Thank you to everyone who has purchased from my shop recently. Yes, sales are slower due to temporarily not selling to US customers. I am grateful to everyone for their kind emails, their messages saying they hope things improve.

But good news - Royal Mail has its new tariff-compliant system up and running. As soon as I see things are working well, I will be happy to offer my work to US customers once again. Yesterday I sent the first of my ‘test packages’ and will be sending more - (like birds seeking out hope!) I am hoping all goes well from here. I am keeping my eyes on tracking information, fingers crossed, and in the meantime will keep you informed. I know some businesses may be sending orders to the US again quite quickly, but I personally want to make sure things will get there without a problem and in a timely fashion. Thanks for your understanding.

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photo: a drawing in progress - seen from my drawing angle - I am working slowly on a series of pencil drawings and will share more about these when I can

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September can be a favourite month and I would like this to be a good one. It is a time of transition from summer to autumn, yes, and the light can be so inspiring. I am looking forward to a busy autumn of making and sharing. The flowers are fading, but my ideas for autumn are taking hold. I mentioned last week that I will be spending some of my time making dolls - and yes, I will start soon to create dolls with the hope/aim of having a collection available some time in October. I will share glimpses and previews here over the weeks ahead.

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photo: a new mixed media flower painting - a slightly different colour combination here, just wanted to try more blue!

ten tiny stories

A sequence of tiny stories inspired by my day-to-day creative life and observations. I hope you enjoy reading.

ten tiny stories (bookish)

1.

Look at you - all tucked in! The man says to the other man. One man with his shirt out, one man with his shirt tucked in. Which man is the happier man? They both seem jolly, suntanned, full of life and plans. They both have wide, toothy smiles. They might be brothers, now I decide. One tucked in and one not tucked in.

2.

Drawing, smudging the pleasing to rework the not so pleasing. You have such flippant energy! Virginia Woolf says, over my shoulder. She is pretending not to be interested in my drawing. I am not interested in your subject matter, she says. I sharpen my pencil. She is intrigued by my sharpener, how it is designed to sharpen two different size pencils. A Sharpener for different size pencils, she says, with a friendlier enthusiasm, I don’t remember ever seeing one of those.

3.

On a lively day at the coffee shop, I have to sit inside and watch the outside people - all younger than myself and bearing small children, and tattoos. One woman has a zebra tattoo on her upper arm and is wearing a black and white striped vest. I wonder if she always wears stripes. I suppose she does.

4.

I stand in the semi-dark pantry, which I once thought would make a tiny office but is stuffed with cardboard and shopping bags, tins on shelves, with the hum of the fridge as my only friend. I have cured the ghosts. They have seen what I was up to, this coming into the pantry in the dark, just standing here. And having claimed their space, the ghosts are reluctant to share. This is what stays for us for eternity and a night: a reluctance to share.

5.

In the secondhand bookshop two young women are having a loud conversation about anything that pops into their heads. But at least they are looking at books, I tell myself, with a grudging forgiveness.

6.

My daughter and I sit in the park, but today she does not want to walk very far, so we are sitting on a bench with a view I am trying not to describe as boring. I know it is wrong to describe trees as boring. I can be boring, a tree finds it impossible. We watch the dogs with their people. So many people with two dogs of the same breed. Couples with couples.

7.

In the secondhand bookshop, at the till, I present an old orange penguin copy of Francoise Sagan’s novella Aimez-vous Brahms. Oh I read Bonjour Tristesse, not long ago, the woman at the till says - I didn’t know about this one! The woman at the till admires the cover, reads the back, and appears reluctant to let me buy the book. We smile at each other. Part of me wants to say: oh go on, you read it and I’ll come back soon - it’s only a short book! But no. I must buy the book. Despite knowing it will wait on my shelf. I buy it, greedily.

8.

A pink slip of paper falls from a book - makes my heart shudder. A sudden memory of handing in an essay and making sure I have a pink slip of paper signed by my tutor. But it’s no good if you cannot find him or her! What if you hand your essay to the person who shares your tutor’s office? What if he says, kindly, I’ll sign for it - and hands you a pink slip of paper, and then asks you out for a drink. What then?

9.

I still grieve for books I once owned but have disappeared. I should write an apology to all the books I have loved and neglected. That book on Outsider Art I bought in the states, early 90’s, a lifetime ago, where are you? We have looked for it, Virginia Woolf says in her faux-calm voice. Sit and knit, dear, your time is better spent if you knit, in my opinion.

10.

A fox at four a.m. - after a long summer absence - here she is, the whistling vixen calling to her wandering young. The car park makes her bark operatic, plaintive, with just an echo for reply. I would like to draw her sound, paint the shape of her bark. I think of sketching the long teats of her shadow as she wanders.

photo: a recent still life painting - mixed media on paper - I have just nudged the price down on this one (from £90 to £75).

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