Who said being an artist would be easy?
Time for a reality check. Since leaving my studio space early last year my productivity has plummeted. Due to a variety of reasons I haven’t painted any major new work for almost a year. With constantly travelling and van life living there’s always that difficult struggle to balance the admin with the cruises, with the workshops, with the travel, with the creating and then having to decide where to park up for the night!
Since I’d agreed to do more cruises this year my social media connection and my connection to other artists had dropped too. The areas of my life fit together like a patchwork but it all takes time in the planning and if I drop one ball then the others can come crashing down. I need headspace to think and create and winter in the van can be tough, in spite of what Instagram may tell you! Sometimes though difficult news can give us the push we need to get back on track. So, I have made sure that January and February have been very productive months and I’m now heading out of the dark and cold and into the light, (via Norway!)
In fact, I’m so on track that I am sending this out a few days early.
Van Life.
Back to the garage in the last couple of weeks and we got the engine warning lights off for a short while. I’m ready to do some longer trips in the Spring and Summer and will continue to ignore those engine lights! The weather has turned warmer though the rain continues to make van living miserable at times, everything feels damp, including my painting paper. At 3 Tonnes in weight it’s not a vehicle you want to be parking on wet grass.
I’m continuing to focus on small works, easier to paint in my fab little workspace and have fine-tuned both my parking in small spot spaces and how to make a tank of water last as long as possible. My solar enables me to be off grid and I only use campsites occasionally when I’m travelling to workshops as at this time of year there are few open and not affordable for long periods of time.
I made a round trip of running workshops in February starting in Kent and going via Oxford, Bedford, Suffolk, Essex and back to Kent again. I love being able to just bring my home with me to work!
Art Life
January started with a full course at West Dean. We painted a variety of subjects from nature and as usual some fabulous work was produced. I managed to fit in a brief visit to the Hockney Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery before I headed off to the Canaries on a ship for a spot of watercolour teaching and sunshine. The classes were full, and we had a few extra sea days due to bad weather, so the final exhibition had plenty of stunning work.
Once I was back on dry land the next few weeks were filled with playing catch up on painting some new botanical work and playing with some pigment powders bought from Emma at the ColourPencilShop.co.uk. She managed to get these to me just before I sailed. The pigment sprinkles come in a variety of colours. They are similar to Brusho which is dye based and supposedly not lightfast, these pigments from Jackmans are more likely to be lightfast. Most of them consist of 2 or more colours mixed together and when activated with a spray of water create an interesting mix. When dry the colours become more subtle. I’ll definitely be using them for my hand made book pages and am looking to see if there is a way to use them also in my botanical work. Lots of fun to be had here!!
I’ve been keeping up with my nature journal and my visual cruise diary as well as finding time to fill some more little handmade books, no TV gives me a lot of free time.
Across the country teaching a variety of workshops for different groups we covered various subjects: The group at the Old Bank Studios in Harwich made some colour pencil Hellebores come to life while KCC courses had a mix of subjects in season to paint from including my favorite, spring tulips. I will be back at the Old Bank Studios for 2 days in October.
Teaching and Travel in March, April and Beyond……
Some other exciting news on the Art front: I have been invited to become a Mentor at Mastrius. I will be Mentoring aspiring artist groups starting at the end of March. Having a Mentor that you can connect with is so important on our artistic journey. Someone to support and guide us when we get stuck, to keep us motivated and accountable to ourselves and someone to share our artistic highs and lows with. I have been Mentored by a couple of close artistic friends and I know firsthand how helpful mentoring can be. I’m excited to be given the opportunity to use my 30 years of experience to help others.
I’m also delighted to announce that for the first time in a while I will be going back to teaching some online sessions for KCC Adult Education in March. Keep an eye on the Adult Education website too for more courses to be added in April for Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Maidstone. I’m aiming to teach full day courses once every 2 months.
Later in the year I will be running a couple of workshops at a new location on the edge of the Peak District, these won’t be Botanical but my other love of handmade artists books and nature journalling. More details in my next newsletter.
I’ll be taking the van away to explore parts of Suffolk, an area I’ve wanted to see more of for a little while. April will also see me on another cruise, this time to Madeira and the Azores.
My usual Detail in Nature course in watercolour in May is now online to book and I will also be running a beginners colour pencil course in November for the first time at West Dean. This is not a Botanical course just a general techniques course.
I’m also intending to walk a couple of routes and pathways this year which will enable me to spend some quality time with my sketchbook. It’s going to be a pretty full year!
As always if you would like me to come and run a demonstration or a workshop at an art group you attend or just want a day painting with some friends just send me an email to check my availability.
You can also find the latest news on what I’m up on Instagram and Facebook.
Thankyou once again to all of you who regularly attend my courses and read my ramblings, it’s good to have you on the journey with me. Wishing you all an early Happy Easter.