Thursday, 12 February 2009

Painting and premonition....


Inspiration does not come easily sometimes just sat at my desk, so I trot off further afield so see what goes. My recent wanderings have led me to the river here as you can see from previous photos, so with that in mind I created this abstract silk cushion cover loosely based on swollen, dark undercurrents and islands interspersing the flow. I chose woodwork class at school instead of needlework, and my, did that come back to haunt me. It took me nearly 4 hours to sew up by hand! I must be one of the few females not to own a sewing machine- plenty of power tools mind, but no Singer. If I'm honest though it wouldn't have taken half the time if I hadn't stopped for boredom breaks every other minute. Or coffee. Or chatting. Or looking out the window.... you get the idea. Anyway I digress as ever. What I'm failing to do is explain the title of this post in connection with the photo. Well guess what happened after I had finished the cushion amd placed it all a-plumped in it's spot? Yep. The river broke it's banks and completely flooded the area down here. Mike and I spent ages siliconing our defences in place, and putting everything up high out of harms way. Waiting was the hardest, but fortunately the water only got as far as the bottom of the step to the door. I now know why we can't get flood insurance here, as we watched the water ebb back to the river.

Note to self- paint a sunny scene next. 

Saturday, 7 February 2009

The first of many






We had a nice day's trading today- and sold an oil painting I had completed of the Bradford on Avon Bridge ( the Lock-up view) a few months earlier. It had been pointed out in the community website too unawares, so from our point of view it has been a good boost  for a local artist painting a local scene... exactly the criteria the customer was after. I now have a 'hole to fill' on the wall which means I can blow the dust off my filberts and get on with another oil. It feels such a time ago that I am genuinely looking forward to it... there is just this matter of finishing off with these 'few' silk blanks I ordered in.

I need to grow another set of arms....

Thursday, 5 February 2009

Bradford on Avon in the snow part 2!











At the risk of looking like I haven't done a jot of work all day (moi?!) here are a few of the photos I took before settling down to a day of marbling and painting. The atmosphere as I walked around was truly uplifting and joyous. The local schools were shut and roads to work impassable, so child and adult stood together for an impromptu hookie day in the snow! Tomorrow will be time enough to post workings, but for now... enjoy!

( my favourite has to be the duck....I wonder if the others will tell her that she 'has a little something on her top lip? )

Tuesday, 3 February 2009

Bradford on Avon in the snow....










Hmm! Slight stretching of the truth in the title there. It should read ' just-the-Tithebarn-area-as-that-is-as-far-as-I-went-before-icicles-formed-on-my-tearducts-and-my-feet-felt-like-they-had-been-dipped-in-nitrogen!' but that doesn't make for a snappy headline. I was also supposed to  be working really hard too, on getting new stock ready, but hey! It's snowing! I smugly justified bunking off by telling my poor, overworked husband that 'who knows? Maybe one of the photos will be good enough to sell' as I left, gaily stomping and crunching away in the icy whiteness. It only took 10 minutes before the heavily-entrenched guilt complex I have been nurturing from years at a strict boarding school set in, and I headed back. I'm rubbish- I even cooked and did all the laundry etc later that night too...Mike doesn't have to say a word!

One of the joys of being down here at the workshop is the abundence of birdlife. I am not a twitcher by any means, but am constantly fascinated by the comings and goings of our little feathered friends. I even know what a few are, like the robin pictured above. He has been captured at an unflattering angle showing off the plumpest of fronts since Jessica Rabbit. I'm still not convinced that it isn't a turkey that has been coloured in with felttip. There would have been a couple of photos of young bluetits too, but the robin has been very territorial over the Tesco 'healthy eating' seed crackers I keep throwing around, and he's chased them off. I'll just have to watch out the window for further opportunities- oh, it's a hard life......