Studio Notes no. 196

Drawings, zine, new writing

Hello Everyone

I hope you have had a good week. We have been enjoying mild, foggy, November weather - and are bracing ourselves for actual cold arriving next week. I hope, where ever you may be in the world, you are keeping well.

Photo: a November drawing - one of my daily series.

I am enjoying the rhythm of making work on paper. Each day offers a slightly different amount of time - and I adapt to this. There is little point trying to make a detailed, larger work, when I have only a smaller window of time/energy. Yes, energy levels have to be factored into this. The drawing above was made at the end of a busy day - but I had an idea: work with a limited palette, focus on the trees and resist the temptation to add a figure, though I did allow myself a bird.

Photo: still life with landscape jug and candlestick

Here I had more time. I enjoyed putting the blue and green together - not something I had planned but it happened and I went with it. I decided a bottle was needed, because somehow I have missed bottles in recent still life works.

photo: candlesticks and crow - a November drawing

This is the drawing I made yesterday. In the morning I popped into a local ceramics show - I was hoping for some candlestick inspiration. There was not much to find. Though I did see some lovely work. It was a good visit and whilst a lot of what was on display was not my thing, I was glad to see such variety.

I collect handmade ceramics but I love simple, earthy vessels. Highly decorated pieces are something for my own pictures - my home is decorated with collections of salt-glazed, hand made and rustic-looking pots, with a few lively exceptions, such as the little french vintage jug that sits on my desk.

photo: my desk in the early morning - here you can see my growing colour pencil collection, with my ‘landscapes’ sketchbook - see below

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Landscapes - poetry zine + postcards

I am pleased to let you know I finally have a new poetry zine - Landscapes is a slim, hand-bound (I sew each one) zine containing twenty-two small poems and comes with three professionally printed postcards.

The poems are a sequence of insights, notes, sketches, moments - and were written as I worked on a sketchbook devoted to imaginative landscapes.

I allowed myself to layer up pages, just as I like to, so every landscape view has its own texture. I worked in gouache paint. My starting point for the sketchbook pages was often looking at historical paintings, in particular the work of Ivon Hitchens and Constable - but rather than attempt to emulate these ‘masters’ I went off on my own tangents.

A few figures found themselves wandering in the sketchbook pages but landscape is the main focus. The poems and painted landscapes are not illustrations of each other, exactly. They are my ‘figuring out’ and may be read as ways in, capturing moods and showing your working out on the page.

I hope you may enjoy reading Landscapes - and yes finally I have new postcards. I have been meaning to have a project like this for so long now but I won’t bore you with a shopping list of reasons why, so late in the year, I am finally here with this one.

I will be adding a limited number of copies to my shop on Wednesday. It will be priced at £7 plus postage (£2 for second class post in the UK - elsewhere the usual tracked airmail, but I always combine postage costs).

(a side note - a bit about me as a poet. In case you are new to my work and don’t know my background. I’ve had poetry published for over thirty years - but these days I tend not to send my work out to other publishers, choosing instead to self-publish and combine my writing with art projects. In the past my poems have been published in a variety of journals and I received an Eric Gregory award for poetry from the Society of Authors way back in the 90’s. I have a masters degree in Creative Writing.)

Sketchbooks

photo: sketchbook pages

Here are pages from my landscapes sketchbook - these are not a postcard, so I thought I would share here to give them an opportunity to be seen.

photo: sketchbook pages

And these pages were chosen to be one of the three postcards - indeed, I think these are my favourite pages in the book.

I am now going to bind various papers together and start another landscapes-inspired book. It will probably wait until the new year for me to get started. That will be something to look forward to and it will be interesting to see how different my ideas might be.

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Shop News

My next shop update will be this coming Wednesday, 19th November at 7pm UK time, with a preview from about 4pm.

I will have a selection of November drawings, new monoprint artworks - and the new zine.

Thank you always for your support, it is much appreciated.

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Exhibitions

Meanwhile, I also have artwork in two current exhibitions.

There is a selection of new paintings on paper available via Two Artists At Home. Several have now sold (many thanks ) - but there are still paintings available, so do take a look.

Feeding the Winter Birds - a painting available via Two Artists At Home

Memento Mori exhibition at Andelli Art - this gallery in Somerset also offers work online, so you can browse the exhibition. My three paintings are sold (many thanks) - there is a drawing currently available. If you are anywhere near Somerset do visit the exhibition if you can - I feel very honoured to be showing my work alongside such a great selection of distinctive artists.

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New Writing - seven pieces

Here are seven, various, short pieces - prose and one poem this week. Inspired by my creative day-to-day life. Please credit if sharing. I hope you enjoy reading.

Colour Theory

I have a new pink-red jumper, a gift from my sister. This is a garment outside my usual comfort zone of blacks and greys. I do occasionally wear bright yellow, as it is a colour that gives me light and positivity. This pink-red is new and suits me, with my hair now grey. I have become ever more fascinated by how colour shifts our energy and mood. I see an older woman, petite and with a narrow face, choppy haircut, wearing the most striking large green spectacles - and I want to just note this energy, a window into someone else’s aesthetic world. But often I look down now, at people’s footwear, to see how a splash of colour says something about their style. For years my own fashion aesthetic has been something akin to Edwardian governess with a hint of seventies primary school teacher. I ditched jewellery a few years back, but now and then yearn for a statement earring. As someone who works with colour and understands it, I feel I need to put a bit more effort in. But am I about to ditch the black? No, unlikely.

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Located

The ducks*, I have located the ducks! I take a photograph and show it to my son who is genuinely delighted to see they have simply moved further downriver. He wants to know: Is there a bench anywhere near that spot? We will have our coffee there, no matter the weather getting colder. For we need ducks in our lives, oh yes.

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Dogs and Pots

At the ceramics show, a small dog is racing along an aisle, lead trailing along. A woman attempts, unsuccessfully, to stamp on the lead and prevent the dog from racing all the way to the other end of the hall. I hold my breath, picturing the destruction of many lovingly-made pots. Then the owner of the dog barks a command and the dog stops in its tracks - turns its head, sheepishly. There is a collective sigh in the hall as the dog is contained, rewarded for its ‘obedience’. I have mixed thoughts on the admittance of dogs to busy indoor events with potential for breakages, but in this town suggesting dogs are not welcome is like putting a CLOSED sign up - dogs are everywhere here. Indeed, I wonder if I am really, truly a dedicated resident of this town if I remain without one.

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New Menu

By Wednesday, the restaurant’s frontage has been repainted and the interior is being organised. The letterbox on the door is still broken, the metal hanging off. By Thursday, the sign for the new (another Italian) restaurant is up. But the letterbox is yet to be mended. By Friday, there are a few tables now outside as well as within. But the letterbox remains askew. By Saturday there is a menu up on the window and it looks like they will be opening for lunch. But that letterbox. Do they not know the previous restaurant here was cursed by that letterbox not being fixed?

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Christmas already

Walking through the churchyard, on my way to the letterbox, I stop to read a sign on the church door. Dates and Times for Advent and Christmas events. Here we are, it’s happening over. But no Christmas tree festival, there has not been one for several years. The last was pre-pandemic. It was a wondrous sight to see all the pagan trees in the old church, decorated by various local organisations. You were invited to vote for your favourite and make donations. The magpie in me who loves to admire sparkly trees and the handmade joy of decorating saw this event as a highlight of the season. Perhaps it was too successful, I now decide.

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Socks

My son comes home from volunteering at ‘his shop’ and shows me a new pair of cosy, Christmassy mens socks. They’re brand new, he tells me, but we can’t sell them without a label attached so the manager said I could have them. Apparently the socks were found in the pocket of a donated coat. I immediately think of a story for them: someone attends a small gathering, receives them as a gift and before going home pops the socks in their pocket. Forgets all about them. Months later, looking through their coat cupboard they decide it’s time to say goodbye to that coat that never really fitted properly - hardly used, it will do for someone else. The socks, having waited all this time, finally get to be worn.

*in an earlier ducks episode they had disappeared from their usual location

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And finally a small poem from my Landscapes zine:

Path

There is a path

between the oldest trees -

where the woman who grows

amongst the weeds

steps down to the stream

to find her favourite cloud.

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photo: the ducks located

*in an earlier ducks episode they had disappeared from their usual location

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