Summer in the Park

This is the photo which inspired my latest print 'Summer in the Park'. Taken in early Spring when I met some co-workers for a rather chilly 'Wellness Walk', it captures one of the long, magnificent avenues of lime trees, which are later plantings from the 1950s, replacing older trees from the early 1700s. This was instigated by the then Park Superintendent, the renowned gardener Percy Thrower, who felt the older trees to be dangerous; at the time it caused quite a controversy, but seventy years on there are still around 250 elegant mature lime trees which seem to draw people to them, like bees to flowers. I began imagining what might be happening under the trees - picnics, reading, babies in prams sleeping - and perhaps, a little dog and its human enjoying a pleasant game of ball. So I began my first doodles and scribbles. This for me is the most interesting part; tweaking the design and making tiny alterations until everything works in harmony. 

Then came the lengthy process of registering the two colour blocks so that everything lined up correctly over the course of two printings per piece. 

This is quite nerve wracking, especially using a premium paper and I pulled each print through the press with great care and gentleness. I eventually had a batch of over 40 good prints which just needed the final, painstaking touch; the tiny red ball which the little dog is leaping to catch. I spent an evening experimenting with various methods, trying different printing implements and techniques, but I couldn't get a consistent result and one mistake would wreck the entire print. 

In the end I bought a little pigment pad and used a big type piece full stop, which did the job. Despite it's miniscule size, the ball is the focal point of the whole picture. 

Earlier this year, I reprinted an old lino block from my college days over thirty years ago, 'Little Red Coat'. I've been creating these little figures since I was a teenager and it's interesting to compare what I did then to what I do now. I can pick out similar characteristics, but there is something more joyful in my new print, as opposed to the quiet solitude of the older one. 

From a limited print run of 42, I have thirty 'Park' prints for sale here in my Etsy shop, and a few 'Red Coat' prints for for sale here, from a limited run of 30, as they sold very quickly. (Or click on the pictures for a direct link).

The old lino plate was pretty flattened by the time I'd finished and I won't be using it again. Now I have to do a quick tidy up and move on to the next one. 

Solstice Morning

The dawn view from the top field at 5am this Solstice morning. I find it hard to stay in bed when the sun is up and the birds are singing so loudly and so early. Even in the farm was quiet and for a short while, it felt as if I had the whole world to myself. 

I’ve been working on a new two colour lino print, using some lovely Cranes paper which a kind blog friend from long ago sent me. I have to work slowly, as my concentration isn’t very good, so it’s taken a few weeks to get it to the final printing stage. 

I’m using a lovely thick Cranes printing paper which was sent to me in 2008 by a kind blogging friend in America - I have kept this paper safe, even back when we had a chimney fire in the old cottage - hard to imagine that this photo was taken 16 years ago and how different life was then. 

I managed to get 18 sheets printed and hopefully can resume tomorrow after a nights sleep. 

Did you know - you can sign up as a free, non-paying member to my Patreon page, and access many posts for nothing, including this recent piece ‘Treasure in the Attic’, about how my ADHD affects my ability to do complex tasks such  as printing.

Spring storm, hares and a bit of good news.

As I write, there are sporadic storms passing over the cottage, driving in from nearby Herefordshire. It’s been muggy all weekend; not the overpowering heat of full summer, but a heavy, dense warmth that brings on slight headaches and sleepiness. Now the heat has been partially lifted by cool winds and intense, short downpours, and the thick grey clouds rumble and grumble with low thunder. I do love this weather - if only it could be forever May, with fickle, changing light, flurries of tiny, fresh flowers and all the greens popping with new life. 

Things are, to be perfectly honest, not easy. I have no idea what the rest of this year will bring, nor if I will be here the next. I’ve somehow managed to survive eleven years in this scruffy but very dear little home, first of all not knowing if I wanted to be here after losing Andy, then not knowing if I could, as I am almost totally reliant on my Etsy sales for survival. Mostly I take a stoical viewpoint and try to ignore the things in the past that I cannot change and the future, which is largely unknowable.  Not having anyone to discuss things with is so hard and I don’t have the mental resources to deal with what might happen. So, I carry on needle felting and try to drown out my subconscious fear of what may be. 

I’ve just finished a marathon of making two ‘show off’ pieces, which have taken a month or so to create. Usually I try to stick to more affordable, simple things, such as this batch of carrots, in my newer, realistic style - 

 - and for which I made little letterpresses labels, just for extra niceness. 

But sometimes I feel the need to flex myself and go large. Often I’ll make a sketch of something before I start, but these two were made up as I went along and I gradually added the little extras such as two lines of trimming to Carla’s skirt; French knots stitched with thick Perle thread. Then getting to almost the end and deciding she needed a special antique mother of pearl stud from my best button box to finish her off. 

Poor Charlie was started a couple of years ago and was taking so long that I abandoned him, finding him in a plastic moth-proof bag at the bottom of a basket earlier this year. He was very grateful to be rescued and even more relieved to be given ears and arms at last. I usually can’t afford to invest so much time into bigger pieces like these, but sometimes, as I said, I like to indulge in a bit of ‘showing off’. Wonderfully, Carla has just found a new home and so tonight I will sleep a little easier before packing her off on one of the lovely new gift boxes I’ve sourced, tied with a ribbon. 

Which leaves me with another piece of very good news - on the recommendation of my friend and miniaturist painter Valerie Greeley, I entered one of my imaginary toadstools, ‘Fog-in-the-Woods’ for the annual exhibition of the Royal Miniature Society, whose patron is King Charles. I almost didn’t, as it costs £18 per piece to submit, which is half of my weekly shopping budget, but I thought I’d give it a try; nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

Needle felt - or needle sculpted wool, which is what it really is - is a non-traditional and fairly new media. I wasn’t optimistic that  it would be considered, especially as it’s been languishing in my shop, unsold, for a few years. 

However, I was thrilled to receive an email telling me that it has been chosen for pre-selection. This is the exhibition choosing stage and there is every chance it may be rejected. I don’t know if any of the selectors will have knowledge of needle felt, so it will probably be judged solely on its merits as a sculptural piece. 

If it gets in, the minimum selling price is £190, which puts it up there as a serious work of art and would make a huge difference to my profile as a selling artist. However, I am keeping a firm lid on my expectations and consider it an honour to have been chosen just for consideration. But wouldn’t it be wonderful…

If you’d like to buy one of my pieces before I enter the high-rolling international art market, do pop into my Etsy shop and pick up a bargain. (Said with tongue firmly in cheek). 

Coffee and sketching in Shrewsbury

In a message to someone the other week, I wrote that I felt as if I was waking up from a twelve year long nightmare (or words to that effect). I am slowly coming back to some kind of version of who I was before losing Andy, not only allowing myself to do things I used to love, but also recovering the capacity to actually take pleasure in them again.  Listening to beloved music that has previously been too painful to listen to, looking at favourite art books again, taking time to draw just for myself and generally doing a lot of self-care that for many years I didn't think I deserved. Living with chronically bad mental health and depression - which I've had since I was a teenager - is an insidious condition; often you don't know how bad things are until you begin to come out of it. 

I made such huge strides when we lived back in the Cotswolds, in our dear, tiny rented cottage from where I wrote so many posts for this blog. I remember waking up some mornings and feeling strange (in a good way) and realising that it was because I felt truly happy and content for the first time in my life. Then Andy and I made the decision to move to Shropshire and that feeling was ripped from both of us almost from the first week of being here, with the awful knowledge that the situation was entirely self inflicted. I will never find that kind of happiness again, but I am finally finding my own peace and my work as an artist is beginning to flourish again after more than a decade's hiatus.

After my lovely time out at the Stiperstones the other week, I had another nice outing when a neighbour organised a sketching morning at the Bird's Nest Café in Shrewsbury, also driving me there and back as there is no regular bus service here. I knew nearly all of the other attending artists through Instagram and it was lovely to put faces to names and chat - mostly about art, which I've missed. I was very lazy and stayed at the table, drawing three different coloured coffee cups. Again (as with the Stiperstones lichens) I had fun just playing about with colours and mark making, without worrying too much about the result. Consequently the result is  rough and ready, but fairly pleasing. 

Vast landscape, tiny worlds at the Stiperstones

I've been working in my new part time role with Enable Employment Services for a few months now and it's transformed my life. As an Expert by Experience (my life of dealing with depression, anxiety and 'everything else'), I contribute my pennyworth to meetings and other areas. For the first time since moving here, twelve years ago when it all went so terribly, awfully wrong, I feel I have a place and purpose in Shropshire and lovely work colleagues. I'm less isolated and it's having a positive effect on my art and mental health, neither of which have been right for all the time I've lived here.

A couple of days ago I was able to take part in a volunteering/team building day with Shropshire Wild Teams and we all headed over to the Stiperstones Nature Reserve for a tree clearing session. Enjoy this short video, taken from the cab of the minibus and accept my apologies for the wobbles and bad light; a proper video camera is still sadly a pipe dream, but you get the general sweep of the area.

The narrow roads leading up to the Stones are long and winding, gradually rising until you are many miles above sea level. There are scatterings of houses along the way - most too small to be called a village - and it is a wide, windswept landscape with views across to the Long Mynd and beyond. It was a cool, overcast day and the rain held off, though huge grey clouds marched along the skyline. 

 

I had a bit of bother scrambling up the scrubby gorse covered slope, as my legs are quite arthritic now. But several of my younger colleagues kindly gave me a helping hand and eventually I borrowed a stout stick, which was so handy that I had become quite attached to it by the end and was sad to return it. While everyone else began chopping down the invasive young conifers that are choking up the natural habitat, I wandered slowly up the hill, marvelling at the rich flora underfoot. I had anticipated having to sit the activity out and had brought along some art materials. The surrounding landscape was majestic, however I couldn’t have done it justice. So I focussed on the wonders at my feet; the tiny worlds of lichen and mosses which were sprouting on dead wood and old stumps. 

        

        

So easily overlooked and yet on closer inspection, so exquisite in their form and colour, resembling an underwater coral reef, with scuttering beetles and bugs for 'fish'. 

                 

I spent some time searching for the elusive perfect patch, eventually settling down on my blanket for a happy hour of drawing. 

                                         

I had a big sketch pad with me, and rather than fiddle about with a fussy, intricate study, I swept my pastels across the page, enlarging the diminutive stalks to giant size. Chunky little Unison pastels (a  gift from long ago) created the swoop and sway of the dancing stalks.

                                         

I was completely lost in my work, adding bright accents of colour, darker areas of negative space and later, thinner, more fragile suggestions of outlines with pastel pencils, another kind gift from a friend and a nice reminder of them as I worked. 

    

                                        

I did have a ‘moment’,  thinking about how Andy loved this area, in his brief time here. I had brought his Swiss Army knife with me, which I used to trim a pencil and I huddled into the waxed jacket I was wearing, which used to be his. 

        

        

I was so lost in my work that I completely missed the sandwich break and didn’t eat my packed lunch until I eventually got home and then promptly fell asleep after a marvellous day out.

       

Turning the page on 2023

 

Dropping in to brush the dust off my blog and wish everyone (if you’re still there) a happy and improved 2024. I had to make some changes to my lifestyle to try to manage my ADHD, jiggling things  (such as my diet and eating times) around a bit, in order that I can use my energies to prioritise work.  That meant resting my blog for a while, and concentrating on my Patreon page and Instagram. Hopefully now that I’m in a better routine, I can blog more regularly.

 

My mental health has been very bad this year, with the constant stress and the financial struggle to survive and keep the cottage going. In short, it’s been a difficult year. There will be a bit of a life change next year and having faced a lot of dragons in 2023, I’m back to painting at last. I hope this is an end to the artistic block I’ve had since moving here. As I write, there are fireworks going off far away and although I don’t celebrate New Year (for me, the year turned on the recent Winter Solstice), I am looking forward to turning the page on the old year and starting tomorrow with a new pink diary and calendar. A fresh start all round.

Field painting adventure and overcoming blocks

I have started to reserve Saturdays as a day off, otherwise I'm working every day without a break, which isn't particularly good for my fragile mental health. The weather at the moment is perfectly 'May' - not too hot, with a pleasant breeze and everywhere around is bursting with greenery, blossom and bird song. I have been yearning to do some landscape sketching for ages and decided to stay close to home, because I have a certain amount of anxiety about going out. So I packed a rucksack with a stupid amount of art stuff, made up a little picnic of a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water and after a lot of deep breaths, I set off on my monumental adventure; a minute's walk down the road to the back field which my bedroom overlooks. This is my usual  pleasant view, when I am working in bed (which is most days). It has the best light after midday and is comfortable.

I haven't  set foot in this field in the ten years I've been here. There are two reasons for this; the first is practical. There is a designated footpath which goes across it, but it ends abruptly at the hedgerow boundary, so it's fairly useless. The second is that I've had a mental block about it, as this was the field that Andy walked across on his last, ghastly walk in the dark snowstorm, leaving only his footprints, which remained there for days. I remember kneeling at the bedroom window the next morning, watching a police dog tracking what it could find of his scent and that image will never leave me. So despite it's beauty (and since then, I do appreciate it, every day), I have had little desire to actually go into it, even for a change of scene. So this was the day and it felt momentous. The footpath is just on the edge of Jean-and-Brian-Next-Door's garden and is almost never used (for the practical reason I mentioned before). It was overgrown with lovely Queen Anne's Lace and less lovely nettles.  

I scrambled over and waded through the jungle. Suddenly there I was, and what seemed like a vast expanse in front of me. The footpath leads to that gap ahead in the hedgerow. Beyond that are more fields, but technically inaccessible without extra footpath. I don't think the farmer would mind me pottering about, as we are on good terms, but I don't like going outside 'the rules', so I stuck to the  route. 

Happily, the area that I intended to sketch was perfectly placed for me to settle my gear and myself on the path - there is a small blossoming area of hawthorn that I wanted to capture, just beyond the oak tree on the edge of the woodlands (which belongs to another less friendly farm). 

It's been years since I attempted anything like this. I did a very rough prelim sketch of the composition, which was a messy scrawl that only I could interpret. 

I have no pretensions to being the next Cezanne or Paul Nash - this was really about getting out in the nice weather and doing something different. It was hard work though, even with copious amounts of pastels. I didn't create a masterpiece, nor even anything like how I emotionally 'feel' about the landscape. But I did have a marvellous two hours, sat in the sun, scribbling away in the middle of a field that I had feared entering for a decade. Now I felt safe and comfortable. I ate half a cheese sandwich and dickered about with my pastel mess until it was time to stop before I completely ruined it. 

It's been  long held wish of mine to be able to spend most of my time focussing on landscape art, but I'm not good enough to make it pay and I can't afford the time it would take to get to a standard I am happy with, nor the big canvases and oils I'd like to paint with. But this will do for now and more importantly, it was a break from my other work and I had fun. 

The problem is an old one - back when I was doing my art training over thirty years ago, I decided to go down the path of illustration, which suited my naturally 'tight' and high definition style of working. So it's hard to break out of that habit and needs a lot of practise to get out of. However I made a small start and the colour capture wasn't too bad - I'm just not happy with the way I depicted it, because it in no way expresses the way I 'see' a landscape in my mind's eye. There's no lyrical rhythm or magic. It is what it is.

However, self criticism aside, I also enjoyed seeing our cottages for the first time from the back - Jean and Brian's larger sections on the left and my bit tacked on the right side, with the white window frames. I had the odd sensation that maybe  (in some freakish quantum alternate reality kind of thing) there was simultaneously another Me in the bedroom, needle felting and gazing out of the window, while present Me looked on from the other side of the field. 

That's another block overcome and for the first time in ages, I have two mini- paintings for sale, in my usual style, over in my Etsy shop. I'm hesitant about mentioning them, as my art barely sells, compared to my needle felting, but I'm going to be brave again. 

This is 'Marmalade', one of my imaginary toys, which comes in a 6 x 6 inch mount but is unattached, so that it can be reframed if wished, which is available here. 

And one from last year, which I've only just listed, 'Autumn Pincushion' (very unseasonal), which is also in a 6 x 6 inch mount and is available here. 

Now I'm going to take the rest of the day off again, as it's Saturday, and I might sit under the willow tree in the overgrown garden and finish some Christmas ornaments so that they are ready in time for the holiday season, which will swing around all too quickly.