Red square

Another new painting playing with red paint and a bit of gold. I wanted more gold really, but as I like using wet on wet and mixing the paint directly on the canvas, but don't always know what I'm doing, the gold paint kept disappearing into the red. Must be something to do with the different textures of the paint. Could do with some technical lessons!

New paintings....

These are two new paintings - unnamed as yet - where I was enjoying playing with metallic paints against a black background. Acrylic on canvas they were done by painting the black background and then applying paint direct to the canvas and manipulating with a knife.

Open Up 2016

Well I do call this an irregular blog but I find it is a year since I last posted! Here is the poster for this year.

New cards ready for sale this weekend!

Upcycling chairs....

Stripping the finish off

Now refinished in blue and webbed

Barbara working on the seat

Green denim jacket in a new form

The finished article

A few photos showing one of our re worked chairs in progress. I did the stripping and refinishing and Barbara did the seat. The chair originally had a cane seat, but it takes so long to re-cane that we decided on a pin-stuffed seat reusing an old denim jacket of mine - a favourite one at that! 

Curlicues revived!

Earrings for sale....

In the 1980's I spent a year on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme running a craft business selling jewellery and candles. I only lasted the year, as I wasn't very organised, or self-disciplined and there is a complicated background story involving complicated relationships and break-ups.... However now at 53 having taken voluntary redundancy after spending lots of years being a librarian I have to do something. The Government seem very keen that I do not become a feckless idle layabout, however much I would like to be one. So I am once again setting up my own craft business on the rather less supportive New Enterprise Allowance Scheme. I am even selling some of the old things..... 

These earrings are some of my first makes - back in my comfort zone! I have set up my Folksy shop today, though I haven't managed to list anything for sale yet! This should be the link - https://folksy.com/shops/Curlicues and hopefully I'll actually list some things for sale soon!

Clock Tower Exhibition

Me at the Clock Tower!

I particularly like how the four Elementals paintings look together (the bottom picture). I had some lovely positive comments in my comments book -  "...Such Vibrance.Inspiring..." "...Very imaginative. It has been a pleasure to view." So I feel very happy with the having had the exhibition. Onto the Open Studios!

Dancing with Colour poster

This is the poster for my exhibition.

Exhibition at the Clock Tower Gallery

Here are some photos of the exhibition at the Clock Tower Gallery at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield. It's a great space in which to exhibit - I really enjoyed being able to stand at a distance to look at my paintings, and to see them as a group - something I can't do at home. 

The gallery is in the posh bit of the old workhouse - now used as an admin building, so lots of people walking past on their way to meetings. It is open to the public - Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm. and the exhibition is up until the 24th April. I will be putting images of my new work onto Red Bubble as soon as I can, but unfortunately we are having some computer problems with iPhoto, and I haven't been able to download them yet. These images are just off my phone and blue-toothed to the computer. 

Sorting paintings for my exhibition

Nine months after the de-cluttering for the Open Studio event, my studio doesn't look too bad! (It maybe has been tidied again once or twice...) These photos show paintings I was preparing to put up in an exhibition - which went up today.... more photos to follow!

My Studio

My de-cluttered and re-organised studio. It feels so big now and it's such a pleasure to be in there. I've shown quite a few people up there today during the open studios event, I'm so glad I've got it looking really good!

Opening Up the studio requires a lot of work!

Barbara and I are busy getting ready for the Sheffield Open Studios event - (lots of info about the whole event here:  http://www.openupsheffield.co.uk/ ) I have been clearing, ro-organising and de-cluttering my studio - it needed doing anyway, but as usual is taking far more time than I expected, and has left me little time to do new work! I will post photos of my re-organised studio soon - but I don't think I have any before shots to show the transformation!

Playing with Colour - Exhibition at Chesterfield Library December 2011

These show various views of the exhibition I had at Chesterfield Library, the work was well received in that I had lots of good comments and although I didn't make a direct sale from  here "Blue Curve 2" was bought by my friend Jenny as a result of my sending information out to friends about the exhibition. She looked at the work on Red Bubble as she couldn't get to the exhibition itself. 


It was good to be able to stand back and view the work from a distance - 10 foot is about as far as I can stand back in my house and some of my work looks really good from further away - you can see different things in it than from close up. (It's ok to say my own work looks good isn't it? After all I wouldn't paint it if I didn't like it!)

Blue Curve 2

Blue Curve 2

Blue Curve


"Blue Curve 2" I did after my last post ... so I did act on those itchy fingers! 


 "Blue Curve", which I have on my living room wall - is one of my favourites, it is often admired, so I thought I would use it as a starting place for another picture. I just had a good look at it and then went up to my studio and painted my version 2. A colour or combination of colours is often my starting point, blue being a favourite - in fact sometimes I have to work hard not to paint blue pictures all the time. Though I suppose if I did it would be fine anyway! I like this very much and have actually sold it! To a friend, but it is very exciting to sell a work! I struggle with the selling side - particulary as with friends I always want to give them away, but Jenny has insisted that she buy it - as encouragement to take my work seriously, which is  indeed marvellously encouraging. 


I find both of these paintings quite contemplative - almost meditative. Ripples or the surface of water is in some way the inspiration, but not in a straightforward naturalistic way but I have tried painting water and this resembles what I did then.

Painting time needed!

Have just added some more work on Red Bubble- mostly stuff from 2007. Realised I haven't done any paintings for a while (or nothing I like that much!) - busy making mosaics, re-modelling the garden, getting hitched, experimenting with mixed media stuff.... but my fingers are itchy... feel some painting time needed!

Mosaics at last

For years I have been saving broken crockery and having 'rescued' two wooden reels that have had electricity cable on them, and having our wedding as a deadline, I finally managed to do something with some of my hoard. These mosaic tables are the result. I'm really pleased! I added some plastic bottle tops, glass pebbles and broken tiles. The middles of the reels have rope wound round them, and the wood was painted with a blue paint for garden furniture, as they are for the garden. They looked great for our wedding parties!

Red Bubble

I recently started putting my work on Red Bubble. You can buy cards and prints of it from there, but also it's a community of artists who give feedback to each other. I haven't really got into that bit yet, as I'm a bit hesitant as I've only put three photos up so far, but my intentions are good....

This is one of the works - it's a favourite of mine - I was using a knife rather than a brush (or as well as) which is fun as you can get these repeated 'cuts' into the paint.

Glitter!

Have recently discovered glitter gel pens! I love glitter and shine. All my doodles will be glittery now!

As years go by....

How did it get to be 2 years since I last posted?! Think I must be losing time somewhere.... maybe I exist in another universe as well..... actually I live in many places in my head, with all the different fantasy series I read, some I probably spend almost as much time in as the "real" world. Kim Harrison with The Hollows, Kelly Armstrong and The Otherworld, Charlaine Harris with Sookie Stackhouse, Jim Butcher and The Dresden Files, and many others.... all with a strong enough sense of place and the world they exist in that I feel I could visit....

Bird Goddess Triptych 1987
Graves Art Gallery

I did these paintings in 1987.The three paintings are individually called: The Bird Goddess, She Re-emerges and the Goddess of Transformation.

I was very interested in using neolithic images as a starting point, particularly for developing positive images of women, particularly fat women. The source imagery came from one of Marija Gimbutas books; the bird goddess from a particular statue, She Re-emerges more generally from neolithic 'venus' figures (and my own body shape) and the Goddess of Transformation from the idea of a 'butterfly' goddess and it's representation as a labrys, a image taken up as a lesbian symbol in the 1970s.

The Triptych is displayed here at the Graves Art Gallery in Sheffield as part of an exhibition by a women's art group called 'Women and Change'.

The paintings are on paper and are painted with household gloss paint - I used to beg the ends of tins from friends, which meant I could paint large works cheaply! I stopped using the paint as I became allergic, if not to the gloss paint itself, to the white spirit I used to clean brushes and myself - I'm a very messy painter!