Well, they say it's better to be busy than bored...

but I'm not sure I'm convinced about that!!

I can honestly say that I have spent the last few weeks running around like a headless chicken...I just seem to have lots going on at the moment!!

"So what the hell have you been doing?" I hear you ask. Well, let me tell you...

I've now finished my latest commission piece. Couldn't show it to you till it had been given to the recipient but it was received last week and I've been told that it was a HUGE hit (Phew!). It is another example of the 'Tree of Life' pictures that I offer and every single thing contained in it relates to Gail and her life...even down to the morse code on one of the branches :-)

I have completed the first illustration for the Sci-Fi book of short stories that I am working on. I can't show you that but I can show you a doodle that I did based on one of my ideas for it (The finished piece looks very different).

I have been approached about producing three images for a Thai charity. They will be printed on T-shirts and sold to raise funds for a children's education project. Yup, you guessed it...I've agreed to do it (for free) because, you know, I don't have anything else going on at the moment!! They want something based around a commission piece I did. They like the hands and the Buddha so I will be playing about with these ideas. (This is the commission piece which prompted them to contact me)

What else? Oh yes, ages ago I said that I wanted to do a 'Four seasons' painting based on my silver leaf tree...at the time I was approached by a buyer who said that they would be interested in purchasing them if I went ahead. I got conformation last week that they do indeed want to go ahead...so now I have to pull my finger out and actually paint them!! This is the pic that sparked it all off!

On Thursday I went to London to attend the book launch of my lovely friend Caroline Smailes. Her latest novel 'The Drowning of Arthur Braxton' has just been released and I am absolutely loving it!! (She has blogged about it here). She writes beautifully and I think that this is perhaps her best book to date...but don't take my word for it...go get yourself a copy! You can buy it here

Then on Saturday I travelled from London to Portsmouth where I was speaking about collaboration at the lovely Denyse King's 'What's your story?' book launch. She has been Portsmouth's writer in residence for the last year and has been running workshops all over the city the results of which have been complied and formed into a book. During that time (she is one hell of a busy lady!) she has also written a number of her own books including a children's book called 'Realand' which is the first in her Portal Series. (You can buy all her books here). She sent chapter 1 to a poet, an illustrator (me) and a photographer and asked us to produce something based on her writing. It was an honour to take part..not so much to do the speaking in front of loads of people cause I hate that...but I was honoured to have the opportunity to produce something inspired by her words.

I'm now off to Amsterdam to spend the week drawing and painting so I shall leave you with the image that I created for DJ's Realand.

Story Box Update

I am back! My commission piece is finished and the client is really pleased with it (YAY!!). I thought, before I start work on my next project, I would pop back here and give you an update on how the Story Box project went.

It was absolutely fascinating! There were 9 of us...some were writers, others were theatre directors and some of us, like me, were visual artists. We started off by looking at writing materials and methods and got to examine parchment and medieval documents that has been re-used to cover court books. One of them was just amazing...multi layered...writing over writing over writing over red illustrations that could only just be seen! It was utterly beautiful! Then we looked at a map of Stockton which had been drawn onto the skin of a sheep (lasts longer than paper!)...when it was spread out you could actually make out the shape of the animal! Incredible! We then had the opportunity of learning about the history of wax seals...some were HUGE and really ornate with family crests etc but my favourites were the ones of the 'commoners' which featured things like scissors (for the sheep shearer) and a knife (for the local butcher). The larger ones hung from the documents but the smaller were actually stitched in!

We then looked at how the archives reveal, in amazing detail, how our ancestors lived and the customs and practices they took for granted...which, I have to say, where rather alien to my modern eyes. We saw a map that depicted which parishes were responsible for which parts of a local road. It was drawn up so each parish knew who was responsible for repairs to the road and that was dependent on who owned the land...it looked extremely complicated and apparently caused a lot of consternation as you had one long stretch belonging to one with a wee square right in the middle of it which belonged to another!

We read an extract from a will which really fascinated me....basically the woman had three sons...she left everything to the third son who was told to give each of the other two a weekly allowance. She referred to her two other sons as useless layabouts who would just squander their inheritance and who couldn't be trusted. Wonder what they did! Must have been bad for her to actually put that in writing!

We got to flip through a 'letter book' which was from 1704 and contained draft letters from Edmund Estcourt of Burton Hill, Malmesbury. There were all sorts in there...letters asking for money, letters about life to his sister, letters placing an order at the butchers...fascinating! We also read a number of 'Pauper' letters which were mostly written phonetically asking various local parishes for help...one woman had been left with five children to feed after her husband had vanished and she was writing to the Parish where she was born (not the one she lived in...that wasn't how it worked) asking for them to send money...she wrote that it would be cheaper for them to just send her money rather than have her move back to the Parish. The amount of information was just mind blowing and we only touched on a fragment of it!

The afternoon was spent browsing and I did a few drawings which I plan to play about with! I got kind of fascinated by the crinkles made by the folding of the maps...the number of hands the maps must have passed through over the years...the folds looked like a map of their own and I spent a very happy afternoon doodling.

I also met some fabulous people! Two that I particularly connected with...one is a lecturer at Swindon art college and the other was actually one of her students. I will definitely be seeing them again :-)

Anyway, here are some pics that I took on the day

The Road Map (am going to do some painting based on this)

 

This is the map drawn on the back of the sheep. 

Can't really see the sheep in the pic :-( but the map itself is still beautiful!

Seals 

Signatures from the 1600's

Story Box

I am doing something rather exciting next week! I'm heading to  The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre which contains unique documents reflecting 800 years of history in the area. The Arts Service are opening up the archive for artists to explore the documents through a project called Story Box. They want to establish a community of artists who use the archive as a source of inspiration...how cool is that!! I am attending a workshop that will give me the opportunity to work alongside archivists and researchers to explore not only what fascinating documents are held within the archive but also what fascinates the archivists and researchers.

Here's how they describe it...

Project Description:
Story Box is an intimate opportunity to explore the archive with an expert guide and select few for company. The Story Box project lifts the lid on 8 miles of archives and invites creative practitioners to slip between the centuries and delve into the lives of past generations. The archive contains a vast array of documents that pertain to every aspect of life and death within the county, there are registers of baptisms and marriages, there are proceedings from courts and school punishment books, there are also personal letters as well as the papers of state. The archive covers every strata of society from the destitute seeking shelter to the correspondence of monarchs dispensing their favours. The archive charts the transition of society from the sharp contrast of a feudal medieval society with its gruesome courts of justice on the one hand, and sporadic support to the poor from charities and monastic bodies on the other, to the creation of the modern welfare state with its democratic institutions and formalised widepsread services to those in need.

It is right up my street!! I'm interested in history and people and community and I can't wait!!! 

This working for a living is over-rated!!

Phew! It's been a busy old week!

I have been working on my Etsy site. It is no longer looking sad and dejected...it's had it's teeth cleaned, hair brushed, shirt ironed, shoes shined and it is now ready to be sent off into the big wide world! *gulps*

You can visit it by clicking on the banner below

AND it now has a Facebook friend to keep it company which you can visit by clicking on the photograph below

I am trying to build up a following (so I don't look like Billy No Mates) so if you could click on the links and 'like' my pages I would be ever so grateful!!

Thank you

 (and sorry if your fed up hearing about this...just trying to make sure I'm covering all my bases)

My inner demon has reared it's ugly head! Time to look back over the month...

Well, it's coming up to the end of February which means that I have been working on this whole 'trying-to-make-a-living-from-my-art' thing properly for about a month and I think I need to stop and review what I have actually done. I've slept badly the last few nights (always do when Chris is away) and today the nasty little demon that sits on my shoulder whispering 'You can't do this' has reared it's ugly little head (I'm starting to feel like I've spent a lot of time in front of my computer but that I've not really achieved very much!) so instead of listening to it and having a wobble I'm going to stop and review what I've actually done! When I was at Uni I was taught the importance of reflection...of taking the time to review how you have spent your time, what that has achieved and what changes, if any, you are going to make to your behaviour/process going forward. So, given that I'm feeling a bit...., I thought I would do just that and actually write down what I have done so far (See, I do learn...ok...so it may take me some time but I do get there eventually :-D). 

Right! I currently have five pictures in an exhibition, have received two commissions (I have not advertised my 'Family Home' and 'Family Tree' pictures officially yet so I am over the moon that I have secured two already), have worked out how I'm going to present my images, sourced proper ink and paper so I can make my own prints, have successfully made two prints (It was a bit trial and error but I got there), have done a ton of research which led to a change in my pricing and have started to update the listings I already have in my etsy shop. I have also been involved in running a creative workshop for people who have dementia and have written a report based on my experience of the workshop comparing it with the information I found when I undertook the literature review on arts & dementia. (It was the first time I've had the opportunity to combine my outreach work with my artwork and I loved every single second of it! The participants were working with clay and I watched them transform over the two hours we were there. As their confidence grew, they went from quiet and, in some cases, pretty withdrawn to laughing, joking and encouraging each other. It was fab and I learned a lot about running an art workshop from the experience which will definitely help me when it comes to planning and running my own).

I'm really glad I decided to write this cause reading that back...it's actually quite a lot! (Ha, not so smug now are you Mr Nasty Demon?) (Note to blog readers: Yes, I am aware that I am now talking to my imaginary demon...please just ignore it and move on!). My goal was to have all the images on my etsy site up by now and because I'm not even close to that, as I said, I was feeling like I'd spent a lot of time in front of the computer but hadn't really much to show for it! Thinking about it though...how can I run my shop if my pricing is wrong and I don't have the ability to produce what I'm selling? The answer to that is I can't! I have to recognise that the admin side of things is particularly heavy at the moment because I'm trying to sort out all the images. The downside of having a backlog of 70+ pictures is that I have a backlog of 70+ pictures!! Once they are up then I will be adding new art work as I go along and won't have to face such a mammoth task again but, like these things often do, it's taking me a lot longer to get it all done than I expected! But, you know what, that's ok...I am having to get to grips with new technology and software as well as having to frame each piece so it has a 'lifestyle' shot (Apparently people need to see a picture framed before they can imagine it on their wall at home). I just need to make sure that I balance my time going forward.

This has been a very good exercise for me...perhaps I should write regular monthly updates so I can follow my progress and evaluate whether I am actually making good use of my time or not!

Wow, a serious post! Don't worry...normal service will soon be resumed :-)

*goes off feeling sooooo much better than she did when she started writing this*

My Work Space

My Dad has just bought a house in Spain which I've not seen yet and last week he posted a picture of his office on Facebook. I LOVE seeing photo's of people's work spaces...I find them interesting, intriguing and inspiring. I like the fact that, when I think of that person at work, I have a mental image of where they are. So, with that in mind, I thought I would share a few pictures of my own.

Welcome to my humble, and slightly chaotic, abode. 

I am sat here right now

and all I need to do is turn my chair round and I can work at my drawing table :-)

No idea what my work space says about me but I thought I would share it anyway!

It worked!!

It worked!?

My cunning plan to be able to produce my own prints actually worked!!

 *faints*

I'm donating a couple of my pictures to a charity exhibition and the theme is 'Contrast'. I decided to try out my new technology and my snazzy new paper (It's all singing and all dancing...been developed for museum archives and is specifically designed for fine art prints dontcha know) then the plan was, if it all worked, to frame them for the exhibition. 

and it worked!!

Cloaked Woman

Teeth

I am really pleased with how they turned out! I actually like them so much that I'm thinking of putting them up on my own wall!! (That NEVER happens!!)