photo: sketchbook pages from 2015
Two of the sweetest, most dainty collared doves are prancing about in the garden. They make little leaps on the long wet grass, not sure why, perhaps it’s a game they have made up for themselves. Eventually, they fly up to the garage roof then swoop down to the table where seed is waiting for them… These little moments keep me from worrying about everything in the world, and add a little joy to a dull day. It has been so rainy, so very rainy…
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Photo: a selection of tiny winter landscapes - all ‘lucky dip’ works
I have been extremely busy, thank you, with painting and making. I have been especially busy painting tiny winter landscapes for my ‘lucky dip’ offer. It gladdens me so much to get feedback from people who have received and seen what has arrived, to know that you like your tiny painting(s). Of course, some are being purchased for gifts and have yet to be peeked at.
Above are just some of the several that have been packaged up in tissue paper and shuffled into my little store of paintings, to be picked out randomly and sent on their way…..
(Thank you also for your patience with the postal system, which has some delay at the moment.)
My sister asked me if I write lists of ideas for the winter scenes. Yes, I do try to keep them as varied as possible and so will move about from one idea to the next and be sure to not have two similar works in any recent collection. I sometimes jot ideas on paper as I am working, but the truth is my list-writing mania has subsided in recent times.
I used to be such a list-keeper. I was the Lady of the List. I had notebooks filled with them. Things to do. Things I might Do If I Could. Things I Should Try. Things For Another Day. Things I have Been Putting Off. Things For the Joy of Things.
So, this coming winter, I shall try to reinvent my listmaking prowess. I will become the earnest listmaker of my youth. It can be done. I have enough pens and pencils, but need a few fancy notebooks, because just how worthy is a list on a scrap of paper?
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Last week I hinted toward Christmas and now I shall give you a little more on Christmas-related busyness.
An update on my tree-growing. I made a branch or two, every now and then, in odd branch-making moments. Over the course of about two weeks a tree was built. At least something that is supposed to resemble a tree. Not sure I like it at all right now. I know it needs the trunk painted. It is what it is - a feather tree inspired - thing. A little forlorn as it stands amongst my houseplants, but oh well. I hope, given paint and lights, maybe a few dainty decorations, it will be less of an oddity…. Note also: cutting felt fibres makes a mess and the tiny bits can irritate your nose. Work with caution…Photos of the tree next week….
I have been researching Christmas traditions, as this is something that fascinates me. It is, as most people may agree, a complicated holiday festival with so many different ideas and imaginations merging. I think that is what makes it so interesting to me. The story of Christmas is not one but many stories about people and how they celebrate. A simple historical guide telling you what people did through the years is really not telling the whole truth, for there are so many side traditions, Pagan ideas mingling with Christian, fairy tale and pantomime, Dickens and earlier poetry all woven together.
One tradition we have here in the UK is the paper Christmas cracker. They are on the dinner table and often tiny ones decorate trees - well, I certainly grew up with crackers as tree decorations too. I was looking into this and came across a superb very early film of factory workers making Christmas crackers. The film was made in 1910 and offers so much in social history. I do encourage you to watch, if only to marvel at how these workers had all their fingers intact.
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A few small stories from this week
Have you ever thought of tackling a ‘sorting out’ project believing it will take you less than twenty minutes? It can be anything, from re-organising books to decluttering sketches on loose paper. I decided on something seemingly small-scale, just for the thrill of having it neat and easy to use. A box of DMC embroidery threads is a relatively benign thing, however tangled all those threads may be. I opened the box to find many skeins of thread and the crowning bird’s nest of strands, so knitted and tangled only a few adept robins could have made it. My attempt at de-tangling made me anxious, and as much as I wanted to save every bit, scissors were the only rescue remedy.
Some minutes into the task, I realised that the threads I had previously started to wind on to lolly sticks had actually remained untangled. I needed more lolly sticks. I asked my son, who was going into town, to buy me a pack of lolly sticks from our local art/craft shop. He was bemused. You mean the sticks but no lollies? Yes, I said, they sell them in packs of about fifty.
Sorry, my son says, they only had a pack of two hundred.
So now, no excuses, another time - some time when I think I have another ‘twenty minutes’ for a simple task - I will wind all those threads on to the lolly sticks. Until then….
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Daughter and I go for a short walk in the neighbourhood. She comes with me to steer me like a creaky old ship, but really I am feeling much more confident on my feet. I lead us along the less steep pathways. We pass a house with a front garden of artificial lawn and marvel at just how alive the autumn leaves look resting upon the dewy bright green. It’s such a jarring sight, of course, but we wonder if now the deed is done, the real replaced by brash fiction, there will be no going back. Our own front lawn (a good deal of things other than grass) is rutted with holes from where badgers have dug. As we return home I inspect the fresh growth of weeds in the driveway and note spring bulbs are coming up - as apparently, yes, Spring in November is happening this year.
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I paint the birds, I always paint the birds. As they to and fro, as they gather against the rain and cold. I paint the birds…..
This artwork is one of three ‘winter sketches’ that I am having printed up as postcards. The set of three should be in my shop as soon as I get them, but I doubt I will have them in time for my next main update - this coming Wednesday - which will be the last before Christmas.
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Thanks always for reading here, for your kind comments, likes and for subscribing. Please feel free to link to these studio notes and share with your friends. Thanks too to all the kind people who support me by buying a coffee - this really does help out.
I made the mistake of cleaning the studio window which sounds like a benign thing but it has a lot of shelves and ledges and actually took the best part of the day to clean it and put it all back together, and I had to do it because I can’t work until the desk is back. To make it worse, the plants got aphids and the window got all sticky almost immediately! Rude. Love the birds. Love birds in winter skies.
Oh, Cathy, great to hear that you're out walking some! Your birds are beautiful- the shapes, colors and how you have captured their flittering movements. The video was strangely fascinating, stressful, and satisfying to watch. As for those "little" jobs that need tackling... many thread nests here, just as many systems to sort it out started- winding on corks, those paper spools, divided compartments... all abandoned midstream. I tried to lure others into the task, asking for someone to sort them for my birthday last year... hands went up, but alas, once they saw the state of my thread affairs, they turned and ran. Sigh. Thank you, as always, for sharing your enchanting weekly musings.