Birthday card

For a dear friend's mum on her 60th birthday.

Introducing some stitch

 

 

I have spent a lot of my time painting recently and have begun to move onto collage and now a bit of sewing.  I have never been able to stay fixed to one medium, and honestly can't think of a reason why I should.  The options are endless when using mixed media.  I find it incredible the journey this particular piece of work has gone on so far, starting as a photograph of an old boat on the Isle of Wight, moving through to a patchwork of colours.  I wonder where it will go next.

A familiar journey

A journey between Manchester and Milton Keynes.  One I am very familiar with and one that has meant many different things to me over the years.  I struggled to find the right words this time - I think they have all been said.  It's time for doing now.

This is always how I start my illustrations - a quick sketch on the train.  I'll now sit down with these and start experimenting with lines and textures and eventually they will join the ever growing Moving Images series.  I wonder if they will ever stop moving.

Studio

 

So it may be a little rough around the edges at the moment, but this is where the action happens, at my lovely little studio in Emmaus village Carlton.  Light is so important when you are being creative and I am fortunate enough to have it flooding through in abundance through my enormous windows here.  I am making it a bit more homely over the next few weeks, so will post more photos as it progresses. 

Inspiration in the Lakes

Over the Easter break, I was fortunate enough to spend a few days in Lake District, walking, reading and generally relaxing.  The countryside was breathtaking - impending mountains, vast lakes, endless stretches of green and gorgeous old buildings made from local stone.  As ever, I found myself most enamoured with the derelict and forgotten places we stumbled across - houses that were no longer inhabited, industry that was long forgotten.  I just love imagining what it was like before.  I was also struck by a magical fallen tree trunk which visitors used like a wishing well, pressing pennies into the bark in the hope that if they made a wish it might be granted.  The contrast between nature's mammoth creation of a tree, with hundreds of man-made shiny coins was almost breathtaking and, for me, was a wonderful example of how mankind can interact with the natural world, so simply, to create something unique.

New Horizons

I stopped moving around and tried to adapt to my home.

Welcome back

I am back to blog.  Hopefully bigger and better than before.  This is one of a series I started called New Horizons - a follow on from the Moving Images series.