photo: scabious or pincushion flower ‘black knight’ - deepest purple with pink wispy tufts
It’s a beautiful start to what will be a very hot day. So I am sat by my open kitchen door to enjoy the outside world before it gets too warm. Donkeys are braying and crows are calling. Traffic moans on the horizon. I can hear my neighbours making breakfast, a seagull swirls in the empty blue sky (seagulls live on our landlocked neighbourhood, they seem to like it here). What can I see flowering right now in my little garden? Dark pincushion flower, aka scabious black knight, a favourite from last year survived the winter and is back again. English lavender is at its peak, a dark clematis is doing well - but a lot of flowers are pink. When did I get into pink? Well, you may know pink is not my favourite but when it comes to flowers its a colour hard to avoid…
photo: clematis violette etoile
I am at heart an autumn child who seeks to embrace summer colours for just a few weeks each year. It helps to know the colours that make your heart sing. I have worked toward finding out the colours that matter to me and, as I have written before, this helps greatly as a starting point. When I sit down to paint I can find my way into a scene, a story, a feeling - with the help of the colours that matter to me.
But I will always allow surprise guests - if they suit the circumstances:) And a fleeting joy in summer colours is fine by me. A hot pink that reminds me so much of my grandmother - her housecoat and lipstick. She wore a Boots No.7 lipstick that was called Gay Crimson - I think they might have renamed that colour, quite possibly, but then again I hope not.
photo: a very pink zinnia
Naming colours -I wonder how many of us have been lured into choosing a wall paint colour or a knitting yarn shade because of the name? What would you rather have in your home - Wishful Thinking Pink or Dystopian Dishcloth Beige? I kind of like the sound of both, but maybe not together…..
Come autumn, as much as I may be in my happy space, revelling in golds, warm browns and black etc… there may be a tiny part of me that still likes and longs for a tiny bit of hot pink… maybe?
And a tiny bit of hot pink in a still life of dark objects can bring it to life. I must remember that for a future painting….
photo: a sketchbook page - featuring pink - from 2019
**
Now we are 50 - this is my fiftieth studio notes and I have been writing here for over a year. Thank you so much for subscribing and reading along. When I began these mostly-weekly notes I had a few ideas but not much else. I began at zero subscribers and am now inching my way toward the 1000 mark. Not bad for something so modest. I still have a way to go and would like to reach many more people. I want to keep these notes free to all for now.
To note reaching 50 I was going to do a special Q and A edition - but of course last week I got lost on an Instagram tangent and completely forgot to ask you to ask me questions!
So please, if you have a question to ask me leave it in the comments below or you can email me (ccullis@gmail.com without brackets)) and I hope I can answer a few in next week’s notes. Ask me, dare I say it, just about anything - though I will not give detailed tutorials on how to wallpaper your kitchen because I just don’t do that sort of thing. Thank you!
**
A few notes from this week
photo: a doll’s house bedroom - Curtis Museum
My son and I went on a trip together - we really needed to just go ‘somewhere’ rather than the usual spots. We chose to revisit Alton, a lovely smaller market town a hop and a train ride away. It has several small attractions including at least two museums. (Just up the road in Chawton is Jane Austen’s house - my daughter and I will be visiting there later this summer hopefully).
My son and I went to the Curtis Museum in Alton which is a curious mix of local history, natural history scenes (think taxidermy with very detailed landscaping). There is also a delightful collection of toys through the years including dolls houses. We enjoyed revisiting a place we have been to - a reassuring experience in a way, to step into a museum and see it just so. Big museums and galleries can sometimes *move things around* without your permission, so that when you return after a decade you walk about feeling very confused and aggravated. A small museum like the Curtis has a tiny gift shop and plants for sale most likely grown by the volunteers that work there. I got two hardy geraniums for a pound! A small museum can be eccentric and spark all kinds of ideas for future artworks….
photo: detail from a natural history scene on display in the Curtis Museum
*
I realise it has been a while since I have told you any bus stories. The buses have been busy but there’s not been much to report except the sadnesses of unwashed folk and that’s too sad for a Sunday or any day…. However, I was on a bus recently with a singing driver. I mean not just mumbling to himself but full-on, sunglasses on and singing right at his own reflection in the windscreen. Singing so merrily, a bit of Frank Sinatra and then a bit of Pet Shop Boys… eclectic for all passengers. As people got off the bus they mostly had to say something about his singing. ‘I’d love to know what it is you had for breakfast!’, or ‘Keep singing, you’ve made my day!’. I was too shy to say anything more than my usual ‘thank you!’.
*
Cutting tiny pieces of patchwork, using my fingers to smooth the seams, wondering how on earth I got to this place - this happiest of places where I can spend hours simply cutting and stitching back together.
*
I see a tatty robin, losing his winter feathers but still beautiful. Somehow, I don’t know how, I think of my grandfather and how his summer short sleeve shirts had cigarette burn holes. How each summer he would add a little extra burn hole to a shirt. How it did not matter because he spent all summer reading Tom Sharpe and sleeping in the sun, or on cooler days working in his woodworking shed. And how Grandad and I would go to the church turned into a secondhand book shop, spend hours looking at the piles of books heaped up against the stones walls…. All of this from seeing a tatty robin.
*
Thanks always for reading here. Please do leave comments (and questions please) - if you enjoy reading these free posts and would like to show extra support you can buy me a coffee - so very appreciated!
I am continuing on a semi-hiatus from Instagram. I will post once or twice a week. Please forgive me if I miss your photos.
You can find me on Flickr. I will also be previewing new work in my shop from midday Wednesday - update at 8pm (UK time).
Your observations and reflections are something I look forward to each Sunday. The way you see and share the world truly helps smooth the rough edges that we bump up against with such frequency these days. You provide a powerful reminder that we are responsible for creating our own reality, and I always feel pulled into a softer mindset when I read your words. I love the story of the singing bus driver, the effusive joy freely shared to brighten the day. Each day holds these moments if we pay attention! My question for you is: Where would you travel if you had no limitations, and why? Have a lovely week, Cathy! 💚
I so love being treated to another tender, lovely collection of memories and of artwork old and new, tying everything together as you always do… Your Sunday notes are the first thing I reach for upon waking, still in bed, so I am always initially squinting as my eyes adjust to being open again. And that is what you always do for me, by sharing your stories and perhaps some glimpses into sketch work you’ve been working on during the past week: you truly open my eyes physically and spiritually as a very kindred artist, a long time friend of sorts, sharing little snippets of artwork and memory. Of all the many artists whose work i have discovered in my years of creating, I do find the greatest inspiration from the workings of your hands and heart.
As for a question, do you still have any of your artwork that you created as a child? And what was your favorite way to express yourself, and in what medium?
Sending you love and deepest gratitude for all that you are, for all the beauty that you bring into this upside down world, in your own shy and gentle way. xox Nina