Studio Notes no.85

so many stitches and more

photo: untitled gouache drawing on paper - I will be sharing a series of monochrome drawings on Instagram throughout May. My aim will be to post each day, but this is just a guide. I have given myself a head start by working on a few over the past days. I will be adding them to my shop as we go along, with free worldwide postage included (the new drawings will go into my shop at midday each day).

Hello, I hope you are well. Apologies for sending this a little later than usual, but I had a lot to share/edit/photograph. Thank you for your kind comments and emails over the past few weeks. I needed to take a break last weekend but am back with quite a lot to share. My focus has been shifting to stitch. My dear friend my sewing machine and I (we seem to be on good terms recently) have been busy with many hours of stitching.

Hours punctuated with lots of breaks. I am getting used to this way of working - or how it should be, or how it was really. I stitch a bit, I put the kettle on and catch up with emails. I stitch and then I walk to the shop. I stitch, I work in my sketchbooks - you get the idea. The most important thing is that I pace myself. Drawing with stitch is something that takes skill, courage and bravado. To be able to draw like this requires lots of drawing practise with other media, which is one reason why I am working on my May drawings (see above) - I need to keep my drawing muscles active and imaginative.

I have just completed these two new stitch pieces. One is larger than the other, both are highly detailed. They will be offered for sale in my shop on Monday at 6pm UK time. I will have them as ‘coming soon’ from this evening, so you can see more photos. Thank you always

Photo: For Love Remains - a new embroidery artwork. You may see here how I extended the lower section of this one (there’s a tell-tale ridge). I like this effect. To my eye it lends a sense of ever depth and things being contained. But I thought I would point out what I did here. When I started the piece I had a much smaller portrait in mind - but then, I never plan these things and somehow it needed to grow.

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Sketchbook weekend - I am grateful to everyone, at least a few people or more, who suggested they may be interested in participating in a ‘fill a sketchbook in a weekend’ challenge. I would like to do this. I am thinking the first weekend in June, which is not so far away (time certainly flies).

photo: recent sketchbook pages

photo: recent sketchbook pages

So, if this sounds like something you are interested in please email me and I will hope to create some way of checking in with each other over the weekend. This might mean I go live on YouTube, if I can work such a thing out. Or it could be we simply use a shared email group. Certainly, sharing photos in Instagram stories would be a straightforward way for people to share what they are doing - that is if they wish to share. There is no rule that you have to share any of your sketchbooks pages, or that you have to work in a particular way or book. You do what you would like to do. The only main shared point to this is that we are working on that weekend - 3/4 June. (and even if you can’t participate that weekend, you can always choose another for yourself).

After the weekend, then perhaps it would be a wonderful thing to be able to share some photos of other people’s sketchbooks here - in these studio notes. So, quite possibly, over the following few weekends I can check in with participating sketchbook artists and ask them to send me photos, with links to their social media to be shared along side. A further extension of this is to put together some kind of e-zine, or even printed newspaper (I’ve been looking into this and it seems possible, though will involve some work).

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This past Wednesday I updated my shop with a variety of new work, including a trio of tiny pencil drawings priced humbly at just £9 each. Thank you to those who purchased. I hope to offer more of these over the next weeks ahead. My aim has always been to offer my work at modest prices, taking into account the labour and cost of producing work etc… Now and then I want to offer something priced very modestly - and the pencil drawings are my way of doing this.

Some of my work - for example the stitched pieces - require a good deal of physical effort, skill, intense work. This is reflected in the pricing, though modestly. Putting a price on a piece of artwork has never been an easy process for me, there is no one formula that I work by. I am grateful to have the help these days of my adult daughter who will ask me questions about time, cost, etc.. to lead us to a fair price. I am wary of over-pricing and may at times under price my work, but I do this with a conscientious mind. Fortunately, I do not have to worry overly about gallery pricing - that is taking into account the cost of commissions. Yes, I do sell my work via a third party such as a gallery, from time to time, but I don’t like to have this as a constant reckoning tool. Every artist must find their own way of pricing and it is not something I can offer advice on, though I am often asked to do so.

To be able to offer my work at modest prices means - well a few things really, to be honest, and the most obvious one is living modestly. I simply don’t spend a lot of money on a lavish lifestyle, in case you haven’t noticed. I do though, have financial commitments and anyone who knows about rent costs in the south of England will get what I say when there are just some costs that are unavoidable. I am rambling a bit here, but just want to say: I will keep on offering my work at modest prices not because I undervalue what I do but because it matters to be that I can share it with as many people as possible. I recognise that yes times are tough and I am offering my work to a variety of collectors.

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A few small stories

I leave the house, wrapped up in a coat I am fed up of wearing because it should not be coat weather still, should it? I glance at the lush nettles growing by the edge of our front garden. Walking on, still looking down, I find two-thirds of a robin’s egg shell. This I scoop up with gentle, shaking fingers. It feels like the ultimate prize of the day, but wary of the breeze, I tuck the shell close to me and turn back home to put the shell somewhere safe. It is such an intense blue. A sacred blue. Not one to be found easily on any painter’s palette.

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It’s been a long day of painting, happily so. I sit at my desk and every so often turn to my daughter who sits further back in the room. She is off work today and is relaxing, catching up with her own thing. Now it’s late afternoon and I know I should not have yet another cup of tea (don’t want to be awake all night). I turn to my daughter and tell her about how I have been reading about people ‘quiet quitting’ on their jobs. I can’t see how it is possible for me to do this - not that I would - but can understand why people do it. My daughter says it would be ‘visibly obvious’ to her if I even attempted to stop doing what I do. We laugh. There’s some comfort in this.

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Only three zinnia seedlings in the pot on the windowsill. In previous years they have popped up almost as soon as they are sown. But this year, days on, only three. But they will be the most special and fantastic zinnias, quite dream-like. Meanwhile, no sign of tomatoes. Yes, we have no tomatoes. Oh dear.

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I am sewing another patchwork quilt, this time in black with neutrals, plant dyed tones. It gives me a thrill to piece triangles together. I want to angle the square by adding triangles and, somehow, I work out how this is achieved. No, I don’t follow anyone else’s pattern or guide. That’s no fun. If only they taught geometry like this school! I would have paid attention. Maybe.

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Thanks always for reading here, for your comments and likes. If you would like to support my writing you are welcome to buy me a coffee. Thanks always for the coffees, much appreciated!

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