Studio Notes no. 211

Stitches, drawing, poems and more

Hello Everyone

I hope you are well. We have had such a mixture of temperatures and April weather - from chilly to baking warm. The geraniums on the attic windowsills are making flowers and I have yet to sow any herb seeds. Please remind me in a few weeks if I do not share news of seedlings!

Here’s a new painting, completed just yesterday. I enjoy tulips even more when they start to evolve into something more otherworldly. I waited for tulips to flop but some have become ever more twisted and dark, whilst others have indeed flopped and made themselves into static whirls. I kept the tones quiet, even hinting toward wintry, to allow the tulips to have their moment.

‘Still life with going-over tulips’ a new painting in gouache on gesso-primed watercolour paper 28cm x 22.5cm

I like to work on gesso-primed watercolour paper for several reasons. The gesso creates a gentle resist, so the paint needs to layered and can create interesting texture, with variations depending on how the gesso was applied. For example, I used the edge of a piece of card to spread the gesso over the paper for this work. I might have used a brush but the surface quality would have been a little different. Another reason I like to use gesso on watercolour paper is that I like to work with layers and if the paper is primed the paper will take more paint and brushwork without becoming so easily damaged. Of course, I will also work straight on to watercolour paper often enough, but I am always exploring different surfaces for paint.

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New Mixed Media

I’m working quietly on new mixed media pieces including hand stitch elements. You may have seen the two collages I added to my shop this week. I’ll just slip a few new pieces into my shop, as and when, as ideas come alive.

Here are some monoprint figures I have made. I use water-mixable oil paint for this using a direct drawing method (laying the paper on a paint-smeared glass surface and drawing into the back of the paper with the eye of a needle). I particularly enjoy the look of these figures on yellowed book paper. As if characters are emerging from the margins of stories.

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(Re)Reading

I’m currently re-reading my favourite novel ‘The Corner That Held Them’ by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Each time I read this book I pick on new details, I enjoy the atmosphere of the fourteenth century in different ways and am never less than dazzled by the prose writing. I often have to re-read passages as I go, such is the depth and joy in the writing - I can tell that STW loved writing this novel. The book is a story of a convent in Norfolk but is so much more than that, and with no one protagonist the reader is encouraged to enjoy a wider landscape of life as it was in those times. It is not a romantic telling of the period. And I must say I am not someone who would otherwise read a lot of historical fiction. There’s just something about this book and I encourage you to give it a go. The reason I mention it is because I am sure my re-reading is influencing the figures I am drawing and the colours I am painting at the moment.

I am a reader who loves to re-read. The books on my shelves are often returned to. A book I enjoyed earlier this year is Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns - another favourite author. And oh this book!* I could have started to read it again straightaway. But I do plan to re-read this summer. Perhaps some people are put off from re-reading books because they feel they must always add to the number of books they have read, but I have given up on that. As a pleasure reader, no longer a reader with an essay to write, I am just grateful to return to wonderful books. I would be interested to know, do you have favourite books you enjoy re-reading?

*Who Was Changed And Who Was Dead, pub 1954 - is the lively, eccentric story of the Willoweed family set in rural Warwickshire - the inside blurb of the book gives you an idea: ‘Strange things are afoot in the English village where the Willoweed family live. First, the river floods in June. The family wakes to find ducks sailing around the drawing room and dead peacocks bobbing in the garden. But the flood is only the beginning of their troubles’.

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Shop News

Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased artwork from me recently. I really do appreciate your support. I am attempting to price all artworks as modestly as possible and that is never easy.

Unfortunately, I have had to recently revise my postage charges due to Royal Mail increasing their prices once again. Now international postage is £12 for smaller items and £13 for bigger. I always combine postage.

I am offering free tracked postage to all UK customers at the moment and until the end of this month. The cost has increased but I am offering it for free - because I know we’re getting hit with higher prices here and every little helps. I only wish I could offer free postage to everyone but alas…

My next shop update will be: Wednesday 15th April at 7pm with preview from 4pm (UK)

This week I will have a selection of artworks and also wool embroidery brooches - I had hoped to have brooches last week but really did not have adequate space or energy for them. I am working on trying to pace myself and manage my own expectations a little better! Anyway, this week I will have brooches…

There is a link to my shop at the end of these notes. I currently have a few artworks available.

Here’s a bird brooch alongside a yellow jug brooch I have yet to fully complete.

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New Writing

Two poems for you this week. I hope you enjoy reading and thanks always for your kind encouragement.

Casting On

Good morning crow,

I have no bold plan for the day.

Let me cast on just enough stitches.

At your reply, I will stop casting on.

How is the weather at the top of the tree?

The yarn slips easily between breaths.

Yes, I’m still casting on and anticipating

though I have no plan for this moment;

the yarn itself is a comfort of hope.

What’s that you say? I may stop.

And now to knit a thousand-thousand rows.

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Summer in April

The swans have departed up or downstream

and on this hot April day paddlers have

taken over the water. A father and son

are dredging the riverbed with a yellow net,

or the father is intent on this, bent in deep

concentration as he sees into the shallow murk.

But Daddy, the boy says, hobbling on stones.

A small girl lingers by, furiously shivering in sunshine

as the father talks of weeds and sticklebacks.

Meanwhile, on the riverbank, a group

of dark-dressed women picnic in the shade,

their headscarves flapping in green breeze

and behind them children in the tree

are climbing, nimble and alive in limelight.

I thought you might like to see some of the spinning and knitting I have been working on recently. I enjoy spinning with a spindle very much - and have no plan to invest in a spinning wheel at this time. The spindle is so portable, of course, and allows me to walk about the attic and watch the world from a window. Or I can sit.

The beginnings of a new garter stitch wrap using finely spun shetland fibres - a mix of two natural shades. I love to work with different British wools and natural colours: browns and greys and blacks.

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