NEWS!

When Clare from Bloomsbury Publishing got in touch out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in writing a book I said yes. That was in October 2020 and the proposition was, loosely, for a ‘maker’s guide’ to painting on fabric. After a lifetime of painting patterns on paper for ‘the industry’ I’d been slowly developing a new repertoire of pattern and gesture applied directly onto cloth. Re-reading my very first email sent in response to her I see that I’ve remained pretty-well true to my starting point:

When Clare from Bloomsbury Publishing got in touch out of the blue to ask if I’d be interested in writing a book I said yes, although I’d never undertaken, or even considered, quite such a huge venture before. That was in October 2020 and the proposition was, loosely, for a ‘maker’s guide’ to painting on fabric. After a lifetime of painting patterns on paper for ‘the industry’ I’d been slowly developing a new repertoire of pattern and gesture applied directly onto cloth. Re-reading my very first email sent in response to her I see that I’ve remained pretty-well true to my starting point:

brushes with reality

A nephew, catching sight of the jars on my studio window-cill (or is it sill?) once asked me what all the paintbrushes were about. “Well, these are the flat ends for straight, choppy and also consistent strokes,

all ing a day’s work

The art of ing – we’re all at it!

made to measure

The sitting-room desk I sit at for ‘office work’ is one designed and built for my parents in the ‘forties.

currency of colour

I saw a picture of a tiny library squashed inside a Lewisham telephone box.

drawing the line

The two little boys were furious with each other!  Amidst shouting and tears the game of Snakes and Ladders was disintegrating into war in the next room. I was painting. Mr 4-years stomped into the studio and vigorously drew marks across the middle of the long strip of paper taped onto their side of the table.“That’s the wall” he announced “and he can’t come into my half.” He wrote his name plus the word ‘only’ and started to draw his garden.

a bird in the hand

It was around the time when I painted this little scene that I also became aware of the actor Paul Scofield;

two for joy

Outside my window the top of the Crystal Palace transmitter disappeared into the rain clouds, the whole sky was a dirty white, the trees dark silhouettes. In contrast two noisy magpies

the art of the matter

My spirits have soared more than once in these last ten days.

hot news

A longer than usual gap between blogs, and the clouds have finally seen fit to leave gaps too and allow the sun to do its proper job.