Featured Maker at Folksy.com

This week it's my great honour to be Featured Maker at Folksy.com and to celebrate I'm offering a discount of 20% off all sales in my Folksy store. I've got some new products too, including this Notebook Set and a set of Landscape Art Cards. There are new prints in the range too so please stop by for a look. To get the discount you'll need code Springsong16.

Me! Click the photo!

Spring notebook set

Sketch. Write. Create.

Landscape Card Set

Towards Dawn

Creative nourishment - May

I treated myself to two days in London so I could find nourishment for the ideas in my head. As spring has advanced, the murmurings of my winter mind are starting to find a voice. At the forefront of these ideas are a wish to embrace colour. With that is a return to a love of folk art and a symbolic expression of the soul. My soul.

I have found my way back in to nature, planting my garden and meandering in the woods. My work has often included trees and it is to trees I am returning for inspiration. At the weekend I was fortunate to visit the Weleda gardens. It was a beautiful fresh spring day and I could feel the sap rising in the trees there, and in myself. It is that connection between us and the trees, the 'tree of life' that is a symbol of many cultures, that I am exploring in my new work.

So, with those ideas in my mind I headed to the Victoria & Albert Museum to explore their collection. I've been visiting the museum since childhood and there is magic in those rooms of beautifully crafted artefacts.

I spent hours drawing from the collections, recording decorative details and symbols of trees and growth and shared a connection with those makers who had drawn from our shared symbolic language. 

Whilst there I had the opportunity to attend the Alexander McQueen retrospective. Not usually drawn to fashion couture, this exhibition blew me away. The creation of the exquisite and the totality of McQueens creative vision was hugely inspiring. It was beautifully curated, sensory exhibition. What I take from the exhibition is to honour the urge to create and to nurture my creativity and creative voice.

So back in the studio this week, I'm working on vision boards and bringing together the threads of ideas so I can start some new work.

If you would like to share a day with me creating with symbols to represent the universal themes of growth and life, I'm running a 'Grow your own art' workshop on Saturday 27th June in Long Eaton near Nottingham. It will be about finding ways to move forward on your creative journey and you will create your own work of art that symbolises growth. I'm taking bookings now. 

New Work

Brow of the Hill

Evening Light - print available

Journey -  print available

Autumn Day

Blushed

North wind doth blow

We shall have snow

Here is a selection of my newest originals. These are on show during October at Opus Gallery, Ashbourne, along with work completed earlier in the year. I have been trying to include more gestural and expressive mark in the pieces. The emotions I feel when faced with an inspiring landscape travel through me and are harnessed in the marks I make. With this initial raw painting in acrylic or ink, I know how the journey of creating the piece is going to go. I am learning to let this energy flow and I am pleased with the results, especially in the winter inspired piece, 'North wind doth blow'. 

Sun Drenched

Just before I go off for a sun drenched weekend I wanted to show you my new work.  I've been working on a collection of small landscapes for a new print collection.  I thought it might be interesting to take photos as the work progressed and I've embedded a slideshow in this blog's sidebar.  Let me know what you think!

New Day

Full Moon

Sun Drenched

Quiet

Private view

'On the turn' ink, collage and stitch

I had a wonderful evening at the private view of 'Patterned Presence' last Thursday.  I sold far more than I ever expected to and received some wonderful compliments.  I haven't come down from cloud nine yet!

New work

Bowl.  Ink, collage , stitch.  12x17cm

Collection. Ink, collage, stitch.  12x17cm

Orchid. Ink, collage,stitch. 12x17cm

Three Pears. Ink, collage, stitch.  12x17cm

Here are four new pieces that I've finished for Holmfirth Art Market on Sunday.  It was refreshing to create some still life pieces, and I feel I've come full circle featuring ceramics in my artwork.  In my work I work in a responsive way, often from memory, attempting to capture an atmosphere or a passing moment.  This series of artwork is inspired by mid 20th century printmakers and Japanese zen rituals, and the ideas of wabi sabi.

These pieces are part of an ongoing series I have in mind, and will be available to buy, unframed in my folksy shop.  

I've lots of lists posted around the studio, of things I need to take with me to Holmfirth.  I'm just hoping for a couple of good nights sleep first!

Cluck, cluck!