Autumn Soul

On a grey, rainy November day, sat in my studio listening to the rain, it seems a long time since half term holidays last week. It seems to my sun starved brain a long time since walking in the Suffolk countryside absorbing the sweet, autumn sun. Walking out, away from the village of Long Melford, away from the horses in their fields, past the sheep and into the farmers ploughed land - I felt free. I packed my pockets with sloes. I collected acorns in their jaunty hats. I looked up at their Mother oak tree and felt comforted. I felt grounded and timeless at the same time. I walked without intention. I took some photos as reminders of place. I watched the light and drew the colours into my mind. And since then, back in the studio I have started a new series of work on landscape, and trees, and the time I spent meandering in nature is flowing on to the page in a way that seems to have escaped me earlier in the summer. I really do have an autumn soul.

You can see more images of my autumn journey on Instagram.

This is me!

This is me! Autumn is my favourite season. I love the rich colours. I'm trying to slow the year down, to take the time to be outside, to collect conkers and leaves and bring nature back to the studio.

The flow of life is ever onward

So it is October (already!) and we are betwixt and between seasons. It has been a fine September of misty mornings and sunny afternoons and I've been absorbing the sun's rays as much as possible. I suffer from seasonal adjustment disorder and so it is a bitter sweet time of year. I love the sense of change of autumn. I love the sense of letting go. I love the rhythm of the days that equal the nights and the sense of sunrise and sunset that keeps a gentle beat to life. But in there I feel the retraction of the sun, the shift to cloudier days, nights drawing in. And so I try to find solace in capturing the memories of late summer, of capturing the sun in my work as a talisman to use on darker days to ward off the dragging greyness that winter can bring. I use the sun in my work to keep a light burning in my soul.

Radiant Light -visit my shop at www.helenhallows.com

And it is that sense of capturing the sun, the autumn trees, the intense palette of reds, yellows and ochres that will inspire my next workshops, 'Shine Like the Sun' on Saturday October 10th in Long Eaton and 'Grow Your Own Art' on Saturday 17th October at Focus Gallery in Nottingham. Using multi media techniques with paint, inks and collage, students will create a collaged block, inspired by the season.

New work

Inspired by a recent trip to Snowshill National Trust property, I've got some new work underway.

I loved the warm palette of ochres and amber with highlights of rich puce pinks and magenta reds. This is the underpainting for a new landscape piece, capturing a layered landscape. I'll build this up with another layer of paint or ink before adding collage and also a layer of stitch.

Back in Stock

I've been restocking my Folksy shop, and it seemed apt to share this image of my print 'Autumn Day'. It was a day just like today, sunny one moment, raining the next and in those blustery moments of glorious late Autumn sunshine, everything seemed to be blown around in gusts of intense colour.

Autumn Days

I love this time of year and this year, Autumn is excelling herself. The colours are rich and the days have been warm and enticing. Each day I have collected a leaf and worshipped their variety and sugar infused hues.  I am savouring each day, knowing that soon the rich colours will be gone.

Bonfire Night!

Happy Bonfire Night. Here at the Hallows house, we're enjoying the rituals of Autumn; Halloween and Bonfire Night. We are off this evening to go 'ooh' and 'aahhh' at the local display. I'm quite pleased it has gone chilly and I can don my new beret and layer up on the knitwear. The season suits me!

To celebrate all that is good about the nights drawing in I've had my print 'Night' on offer in my Etsy shop. Because I haven't yet blogged about it, I'm extending the offer until midnight tomorrow night (the 6th November). You can buy the print for £50 instead of the usual price of £65. Looking at the quilted landscape will keep you warm and those huge stars will remind you to look up and wonder at the miracle of life itself and that we are all made from stardust.

Here at home, we've been making toffee apples this afternoon with windfalls from the allotment and more sugar than I care to think about!!  Who knew they are so easy to make!?

Enjoy the fireworks!

Into Autumn

And as we move into Autumn I am still in love with deep pink! I've been getting ready for the Autumn Yoga and Creativity workshop in Loughborough this Saturday with Chandrayoga (places still available!). I'll be picking these for our lunch table and the creativity session will be focusing on 'letting go' and our hands as symbols of holding on and letting go. Lindsey will help with energy release with a beautiful yoga session and an inspiring, visual meditation. I'll post some pictures next week of how the day goes!

Love Token by Glynn West

And so it goes.

Suddenly it's September. This year is flying by. I've not known what to expect of myself this year. I've taken a step back from teaching workshops to try and get a bit of control over my life and business and to try to make a going-forward plan. I started to come to terms with life and then the Summer came and my role as a Mum had to take centre stage, and now I've forgotten where I'm going! In amongst the holidays and play days I've managed to get some new vases designed and fired and a couple of new originals finished and framed ready for the Melbourne Festival on the 13th/14th September. I'll be in the same, beautiful venue as last year, at 16 Church Street. I've realised how interlinked the different areas of my life are and how my garden feeds me, both in the literal sense and in providing me with inspiration. I often feel that it's not work to be gardening but it's an intrinsic part of myself and my creativity. So this Autumn, when the boys go back to school, I've resolved not to be quite so serious about 'work', to feed my soul with the things that inspire me, and to allow some play back into my creative life. What's on your Autumn Manifesto?

Manifesto Autumn 2014

Live Simply

Learn to play again

Garden-it's my inspiration

Remember the rainbow

Eat simply and healthily

Take time off - book it in

Read about Tibet

Photograph/collect

Read to the boys

Make a pile of blankets ( and sit under them!)

Before Winter

I try to live with the seasons and focus on their merits.  It gets hard at this time of year as life accelerates in to winter and all things Christmas.  At home, the top of the piano is a visualisation of the seasons.  In Summer there are the things we find on holiday, fossils and pebbles, postcards from our travels.  This Autumn it's been decked with seed heads and grasses.  I remember collecting them at the end of September, the day my youngest started full days at school. Soon it will all make way for a display of light and sparkle to take us through the darker days of winter.  But before then, my display captures for me the Autumn.  I love the bleached out stems and subtle colour of the seed heads.

On the Turn

I'm delighted to hear that I've had my first sale at my solo exhibition at Opus Gallery in Ashbourne.  I had a beautiful drive through the Derbyshire countryside to deliver the work on Friday.  The landscape was ablaze with yellow so it seems fitting that my piece, 'On the Turn' was the first to sell.

'On the Turn'

Opus Gallery, Ashbourne

Simple pleasures

I'm hanging on to Autumn as Winter creeps in.  It gave me great pleasure today to treat myself to a beautiful bunch of dahlias.  What simple pleasure will cheer up your Friday?

Have a lovely weekend.  Hope to see you at the Holmfirth Art Market on Sunday.

Autumn Colour

It's so dark!  I'm stitching work for my exhibition and can barely see!  So grey.  Cheered up by this picture from the Anthropologie catalogue.  Lovely rich colour.  Have been getting out the quilts and blankets and cosying up.  I love the painted bowls here.  Makes me want to splash some colour about.

Why I love Autumn

I never thought I'd grow up to be interested in ploughing! This image comes from the latest Country Living magazine.  It reminded me of all that I look forward to at this time of year:

• Fields of cut corn as far as the eye can see
• A crispness in the morning air
• The first fire of the season.....yet to come but just around the corner
• Produce from the allotment: pumpkins, cobnuts, apples, beans and more beans
• Layering up the sofa with blankets and cushions ready for some cosy reading with a pile of boys
• Crumpets and honey for Sunday tea

Have a great weekend.  We're off to Wirksworth for the Festival to catch up with friends old and new: Terry Davies, Michelle Neale, Sue Vanderplank, Stevie Davies, Heather Dewick, Justine Nettleton.  Good luck everyone!

Favourite place

One of my favourite places is the glass house at Clumber Park.  It's a huge, graceful structure, infused with a serene white light.  The space is truly alive with the magic of plants and the ghosts of those who have lived and gardened there.  I felt at one with myself when I sat on the benches in the warmth of the autumn sun and inhaled the gentle oil evaporating from the geraniums.  Sublime.

No one had told these plants that summer is over.  Oh I am enjoying these balmy autumn days.

Seasons Change

Seasons Change 43cm x 17cm

Arc of Light 43cm x 17cm

Here are two pieces I completed last week in response to the changing season. The colours are getting more subdued, but also richer.  The light is more diffused across the landscape.  It's my favourite time of year.  I love the duality of Autumn.  The suprise of days, the not knowing if it'll be cool all day or burn through into a majestic day spiced with colour.  The vicarious weather patterns play havoc with the barometer in my head, swinging from being calm and introverted to full of energy and drive.  The cooler days fill me with a sense of dread at the long winter ahead and the near constant darkness but for now I am in my element, harvesting light and colour to get me through the darker days to come.

There's currently an exhibition on images of trees in art at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.  The exhibition looks at our dependence on trees as a building material and their symbolic presence in British Art, particularly the oak tree as symbol of British identity.

Making Plans

After Wirksworth I was exhausted and the house was a dump!  Little Man had started back at school, we hadn't caught up on ourselves at the end of a summer of trips and holidays and the house was full of piles....of work, paperwork, washing, ironing.....you name it we had a pile of it!!  Wirksworth was an achievement of a dream and a real launch to what seems to be a new life.  David's work is on the back burner whilst I try to promote my art.  I'm excited and scared at the same time but the moment seems right.  As a bit of a net, I've also got a couple of rumbling smaller business ideas including selling vintage linens and plants.  So I am firing on all cylinders, finding it hard to go to sleep at night and writing lists and more lists.  I'm running on the last energy of summer, trying to shore up plans before the year starts to ebb.  The other day I looked up and saw alot that I'd been missing.

David has become a domestic God!

We had our first fire of Autumn and baked.

This year we are drying beans to stew in the winter.

The flow of life is ever onward.....

Mini works

It's a busy month for birthdays so before these went into the post I took a snap. It was lovely creating something so quick after the pains of weaving. Hoping to put some card packs together soon to sell. As usual, leaving it very late for the Christmas fairs. Off to Lustre at the weekend to ogle and be inspired. Also planning on getting out to photograph the changing landscape and capture some of the colour before it all blows away.