page turning

A couple of days ago I had a longing to paint stripes! Luckily I found a new concertina notebook stashed in my studio drawer – couldn’t be a better match. Sometimes it’s so nice and so necessary to have a play, to make familiar marks and run colours together just for the fun of it; to use as many brushes and as many palettes as I want for no reason other than pleasure and curiosity.

a shop, a show, a show-off

I’ve left it rather late in the day to tell you about ‘Painted Treasures’! 

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,

from my window

Each morning when I comb my hair I twist any stray wisps together and float them off through the open window in the belief that they will be found by some sharp-eyed avian and soon be lining a cosy nest.

…looking forward…looking back…

It’s lovely to welcome some new small people to the planet – several young friends have had babies this year, beautiful boys and girls, twins and singletons – congratulations to you all!

the three boxes

I inhabit a very nice, but not huge, flat; I work at home. My life and my work are inextricable.

currents and cloth

A drifting gin bottle, tossed into the seas in 1886 by Germans hoping to track ocean currents, has turned up on a beach in Western Australia.

then and now

 

At the end of the ’80s I was in Accra Ghana; cooked food was sold on every street corner –

peace, love and free enterprise on the Northern line

Time was when the Northern line was held in weary dread by many London Underground users.

mudlarking on my mind’s beach

Having been painting a lot of monotone patterns for the last few days, in answer to an intriguing and tricky brief, I found myself breaking out into bright colours last night.