Studio Notes no.135

daily drawings & very small stories

photo: A Queen in her rose garden - one of nine new tiny portraits

Hello Everyone, another week flashes by, but this week has been especially dramatic - I am, of course, talking about the weather. We have gone from pleasant summer (my favourite 21 centigrade, cardigan weather kind of summer which suits at least fifty percent of the British population, I believe) to - well, autumn: blustery winds, rain storms and brooding skies.

Regardless of the rain, I have been busy with a variety of media and have this week completed some doll making, embroidery stitch, daily drawings and new tiny paintings. I had not planned to give so much time to painting this July, but I am going with the flow of ideas and this is what happened/happens.

One embroidery piece to show you this week.

photo: fine ladies in red - embroidery portrait

I may be taking a pause from more, for a (little) while. We shall just have to see. If I told you I just have to listen into the ether to know when it is a good time to sit at my sewing machine and draw you might think me a little contrived, but that is just the way it is. Too much thread/fabric has been wasted in the past for me to have not learned by now…. These things take time, energy and a clear head.

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Daily Drawings

As I shared with you last week, my plan for July is to make daily drawing in my moleskine book. The drawings will be in pencil, any subject, but worked quite intuitively - meaning I begin and I discover.

Here is my first week (not including today’s, which will come later)

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

I decided Saturday was going to be a double page.

I look forward to sharing more drawings with you next week. However, if you really cannot wait until next Sunday to see my daily drawings I am posting them to my Flickr account, where you can see lots of my work going back many years, if you so wish! It would be good to see you over there. I am trying to coax more people to (re)discover Flickr - it just feels less frantic and flashy than Instagram - and despite there being far fewer people, I prefer it for archiving my work.

I will continue to post to Instagram once or twice a week, but am spending far less time there. If I want to watch videos I go to YouTube, but even that I am cutting back on. Listening to the radio is my first love and I am most grateful for BBC Sounds. What are your favourite radio programmes?

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photo: young woman in scarlet - a new tiny portrait

the new tiny portraits will be in my shop update today, Sunday 7th July at 7pm UK time along with two new dolls and the embroidery piece.

preview all the new work from about 2pm

My next update will be Sunday 14th July at 7pm - a mix of new work

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Very Small Stories

This month I am challenging myself to keep the stories very small. Let’s see. My initial idea was to write less than 80 words per story. The final story is a little longer, at 87, but I will let that one slip into the mix. Hope you enjoy reading.

Wren in Summer

Stepping outside into the old courtyard, a wren flies from buddleia, swoops to a crumbling brick wall. To think, I tell the wren, in midwinter we used to hunt you for some special prize. The wren dances. To think, the wren says, you believe any story you read in a book.

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Bricks

I watch as the house now has windows. Men carry bricks on their shoulders, climb a ladder. It is easy to imagine them five hundred years before now. The same way to carry bricks, same whistling. The mortar would be mixed differently, but their shoes, forever mended, would have lasted longer than a pair of trainers.

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Geranium

I take a step back to see the top of the Georgian villa, our attic kitchen window. There is of course no cat, waiting for my return home. Instead, I wave up at a bright red geranium. In peak bloom, the geranium cannot help but smile at me. A cat would have turned its back.

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Voting

At the entrance to the polling station, I show my passport and the older woman asks me to remove my glasses. She goes on tiptoe and peers into my eyes. Yes, she says, that’s you. 

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Summer Rain

Tremendous rain. We sit and listen to the amplified shower. The ticking alarm clock, so loud I had to move it from my bedroom to the kitchen. The ticking and the rain, a competition of time and weather. Peak summer. 

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Safety Pins

I hate to be a bore, the woman says, standing by the rack of knitting needles, but I’m looking for safety pins. I point to another display. A few moments later the woman comes to find me and shows me her prize. I can’t tell you how glad I am to find these. I had hundreds, literally hundreds, in a pretty tin that belonged to my mother. Then my husband tidies up and I never see the tin or the pins ever again. Can you believe it? 

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photo: a tiny portrait - woman at a table with blue and cream cup.

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