New work......I've been busy!

Numbers 6, 7 and 8 in "La Femme Encadree" series

Six-panel fabric collage and acrylic painting: "Escarpment"

Two-panel work: "Granite Shore"

.....and a small mixed-media piece: "Artemisia's Breath"

Did I ever happen to mention that I love my job?

Back to work in 2014

As summer reaches its height and starts to wind down, visitors have left and it is time to get back into the studio. I'm working on a few more small sculptures in the "Sorrowful Songs" series  as well as a painting which is comprised of twenty small canvases which all fit together.........since I'm stretching the Belgian linen canvas myself, that's an awful lot of stretching! I had to work out a way of stretching the canvases so there is none of the usual bulk where the corners are folded, because I want them to all fit together neatly and snugly......so far , so good. 

Here's what's happening in my studio this week.......

And of course, Mr Button, the studio cat sleeps through it all.......or should I say IN it all!

One of the online groups I belong to is hosting a "Not My Colour" Challenge - The challenge being to create a doll in a colour that is not what you see when you look in the mirror. So using my recent pattern and face-mask, I'm making this little brown child. I suppose I could have gone with purple or green, but I think she's a cutie!

Been Busy!

Here's some stuff I've been doing:

These little softie dolls are a new design.

I love doing the occasional painting

And Julie, the person I made the little jointed "mannikin" doll for, has been having fun with wigs - here's a photo she sent me of the doll in a white wig. She even photoshopped a little tear into this picture! I think she looks amazing!

Progress

That little green head that I posted about a few days ago now looks more human!

First coat of flesh-colour

Features blocked in

Shading added

Finished!

More........

Oh, I'm really getting into this painting lark! Here are a couple more I've completed - green apples and some poisonous looking toadstools - and two more elf babies in felted buntings.

Picking Up The Brush

For quite a while I have had a strong desire to do some paintings again........it's been a while!

Here are some small still life paintings that I have done in recent days to brush up on my skills.

These simple studies of fruit and eggs and the interplay of light and shade were great fun to do......I can really lose myself when I paint.

Lelah Mae

Last year when I was in Columbus, Ohio I met a wonderful painter called Linda Apple. I spent a week staying with her....she is a warm, funny, smart and talented person with whom I felt an instant rapport. To thank her for her generous hospitality, I made this little doll while I was staying with her and dressed it in a scrap of fabric that had been in her mother's stash. Linda named the doll "Lelah Mae" after her late mother, which I found very touching. Linda recently emailed me some pictures of the doll, which I had forgotten to photograph. Here they are. I particularly like the picture of the doll seated aginst the yellow wall on the painted cupboard with one of Linda's paintings above it.

You'll be doing yourself a great favour if you visit Linda's website and have a bit of a peek at her art: http://www.applearts.com/

Something Different

I have been feeling a bit of an itch to do some painting lately........the itch has become so strong I can no longer ignore it! To that end, I have taken some photographs which I may translate into small still-life paintings in the near future.

Here also are the 'absolutely finished' pics of 'Little Red'.

Progress

Here are a few more shots of the doll head's progress through the painting stages:

underpainting; building up colour; adding highlights

From The Arbley Chronicles

This is a collage/painting I made recently. I was aiming for a mnemonic piece which evokes landscape (the forests of my childhood in the highlands), but is somewhat enigmatic: not spelled out.