a fresh desire to work again

It's been such a long time since I've published anything anywhere, I was truly starting to wonder if I would ever write or post again.  The hardest thing, when you've been away so long, is how to start again and for quite some time I've been considering whether I wanted to start at all.  I've agonised over whether or not I should just slope off into a very private non-existence or start again sharing my artistic journey so publicly.

The past several years have been so difficult and, throughout, I pressed on regardless trying to balance the difficulties with creativity until it all just became too much to cope with and I so badly needed to hide away for a while.

The truth is that I was caring for the love of my life, until he passed away less than a year ago.  Just writing this, I am in floods of tears.  He was truly my very best friend, my love, my husband and I am beside myself with grief still.  We went through his cancer diagnosis together hand in hand for four and a half years.  Throughout his treatment, he was so very brave, pragmatic and strong.  He was such an inspiration to me in every aspect of our life and I am so very grateful to have had him in my life for as long as we were together.  We truly loved each other.  I love him with all my heart still and I always will.

We never discussed the inevitable course his illness would take, instead we both slowly adjusted to a different life, a life with many limitations, a day at a time.  Eventually, my own health began to suffer and I was diagnosed with a very strange, rare and serious auto immune illness.  My health never quite recovered and in 2018 I was diagnosed with breast cancer while my husband was in the final stage of his illness.  It was a very tough, emotional time.  I had my surgery, but my radiotherapy had to be delayed as shortly afterwards my darling husband passed away.

I'm doing ok with the breast cancer. I recently had my one year check and so far so good with that side of things.  In January I developed lymphedema, a complication that arose as a result of my surgery and radiotherapy.  I now attend a specialist lymphedema clinic and I'm learning to manage it with special exercises twice daily.  It's a small intrusion into the day and, sadly, a constant reminder of what I've been through, but other than that I'm doing ok with that as well.

I've taken all the time I've needed to get to this stage.   As each week has passed I've felt a little closer to getting back to my art work.  During the past year I've dabbled.  I've been in my studio every day, I've re-arranged my art supplies, I've been collecting sewing patterns, buying fabrics, started dress-making again after 40 years.  I've looked through old sketchbooks, been on a few workshops and been out and about in Cornwall with my camera.  Recently, I had my first holiday away from Cornwall in 9 years.  I went to Norfolk, to Wells-next-the-Sea, as I was very fortunate to get a place on Debbie Lyddon's first ever 2-day studio workshop.  I went with my sister and we had a fantastic time.  It was just what I needed, and getting away helped me gain so much perspective and a fresh desire to work again.

So, I'm starting part time in my studio, working in a small way. It's very important to me that I maintain the peace and balance that I have worked so hard to find, and to build up slowly.  Yesterday, I went in, sat down and photographed the lovely things that had piled up on my desk and then I moved them to one side to begin.

There is so much I want to revisit.  I want to continue on with the Surface Treatment Workshop and the Collage Workshop that I was doing last year.  I have a piece to make for a community project in St. Ives (more on that another time).  I would love to get back to my textiles, stitched and embroidered things, paintings, collages, hand made cards and photography.  So many sketchbooks to share from the workshops I attended (Debbie Lyddon's workshop as well as indigo dyeing, cyanotypes, rust dyeing, natural and botanical dyeing, erosion projects, making paints with earth pigments and experiments with wax, plaster modelling and photography).

I was also very grateful for the invitation to make work for Anne Kelly's book "Textile Folk Art" last year.  I will share more about that in a separate post quite soon.  Also, a fabulous opportunity to be invited by Lynda Monk to make work for Maggie Grey's textile book WOW Book 4 which I think is due out soon, in June.  So that will be a very exciting share too.

I have to rest a lot more now, so two or three days in the studio at the moment is just fine.  I'll see how I go, build up slowly, enjoy the process of creating things I love and offer pieces for sale from time to time.  Many thanks for reading and very best wishes to you all.

happy are those conscious of their spiritual need
~ Matthew 5:3 ~

Surface Treatment Workshop - weeks 20, 21 and 22 - mini landscapes

Quite a few weeks ago now I began creating some painted backgrounds and collages for experiments with glazing mediums for week 20 of the Surface Treatment Workshop.  I shared these backgrounds in my post called "the joy of colour".  Since then, I have worked into my small paintings and also painted around the collage.

I rather like glazing medium ... it has become a new staple product in my studio.  I love how it mixes easily with acrylics to extend the paint and create a beautiful transparency.  It is a lovely way of layering colour and texture without losing beautiful and interesting layers beneath.

This is my painting after adding the glazing medium mixed with a little copper "interference".

The glazing medium is very versatile.  I embossed some mesh textures in the glaze before creating a series of paintings in my sketchbook inspired by the Cornish coast and from my imagination.

"a day at the beach" - detail of texture

"dark blue hill"

"purple landscape"

"the quiet place"

inspired by the Cornish coast

small landscape

I used glazing medium mixed with rusty iron particles to create texture.

And discovered that a dab of glazing medium on the end of a paintbrush is perfect for applying silver leaf.

a touch of silver

I love the glazing medium so much I used it for "embedding" book bindings and other textures into my small collages and paintings for week 21.

"two piers"

I also used the glazing medium in week 22 for the prompt of "pours" which was exploring runs and drips with paint. 

The glazing medium "watered down" my acrylic drips and because it is transparent it helped the paints to blend beautifully

Our next prompt (for Wednesday) is playing with shaving foam creating marbled patterns etc. so that sounds fun and I'm currently very busy finishing off new work for exhibition with St. Ives Textiles.  New textile work will include framed pieces, the seaside and Cornish beach hearts that I love to make, cards and my sketchbooks.  I will also have my Surface Treatment Workshop books at the show on the days that I will be attending which are:

Monday 11 September 2017

Saturday 16 September 2017

Porthmeor Studios (St. Ives School of Painting)

Back Road West, St. Ives, Cornwall, TR26 1NG

It would be lovely to see some of you at the show ... please come and say hello.

a hello from Cornwall

Just popping by to say hello.  I'll be catching up here in a couple of days.  A family visit followed by a mild recurrence of my illness (not connected lol) have had a slight impact on what I've been able to achieve in the last couple of weeks.  I've finished my samples for week 20 (glazes) and week 21 (embedding) for the Surface Treatment Workshop and have also started on week 22 (pours).  I just need to have a little photo session but here is an "in progress" shot from my phone ...

Meanwhile, talking of "pours" ... I found my neighbours' decorators' paint can rather interesting ...

and this lovely view started my day off beautifully this morning ... love that sky!

See you soon ... x

Surface Treatment Workshop - week 17

For week 17 we explored printing with sponges, rollers and foam.  Quite simple patterns in my favourite Cornish colours, particularly inspired, perhaps, by the way the weather changes the colours of the sea in the bay, the rocks, lichen and seaweed as well as misty mornings, yellow early morning light and harbour forms.

I began with a gelli printing session to create the backgrounds then used a roller with bands wrapped around it and a sponge which I cut into.  Quite simple.  Quite quick.  Interesting results.  Just playing ...

In week 18 (which I will share over the weekend) we etched into ventilation tape.  It has some possibilities that I want to explore, so more on that soon.  Thank you for all your comments on the last post and for following along.

Surface Treatment Workshop - weeks 14 and 16

I have persevered with the "skin" samples for week 14 of The Surface Treatment Workshop, spurred on by the purchase of some Liquitex gloss gel and a bit more time to play.  Liquitex gloss gel is such a fun product to play with and dries clear and jelly like.

I applied the gel quite thickly onto the top of a plate which I had previously been using as a palette.  My palette still had leftover dried on paint and some newspaper print too.  I spread the gel over the paint and newsprint and sprinkled mica powders on top with a little water.

As the gel dried, it became clear and the paint and print beneath could clearly be seen.  After a while, it set hard and I was able to peel it off.  A "skin" is basically a "peel off".  This is how it looks on the top of the skin ...

 
and this is the back of the skin with the paint and newsprint ...

The sample below is more Liquitex gloss gel with gilding flakes embedded in the gel.  It starts out white and dries clear.

I pushed the gilding flakes into the paste with a soft paint brush and added some watered down mica powder which collected around the flakes.

This is the finished skin ... it's translucent but against a white background this doesn't show up well.

This is my peeled off molding paste skin with image embedded, finished with phthalo turquoise and glazing gel.  The skins made with Liquitex gloss gel and molding paste are pliable and thin enough to stitch into, if desired.

Below, I used white acrylic paint, thickly applied, to make this skin.  I swirled a little gold acrylic into the white.  This one took ages to dry out, before I was able to peel it off.  I'm not really keen on it either, as it has a plastic feel and appearance, but it is thin enough to stitch into if desired.

I discovered that molding paste takes rust very well.  I spread the paste on the piece of rust and left for several days.  When it had dried out thoroughly, I was able to peel the molding paste skin from the rusted metal and with it came quite a lot of the rusty texture!  If rust is your thing, this might be a useful technique as the skin is pliable and could be stitched into for layering in art work.

The last skin (paynes grey thinly applied) resulted in lots of tiny peely bits which I decided to keep for adding texture in collage.

I decided to use some of these bits in one of my samples for week 16.  The acrylic "peels" adhered on this "pulled paper" sample quite easily with a common or garden glue stick.

So, week 16 is "pulled paper" which is a way of adding text and texture to collage and artwork to give it the grungy, layered appearance of old ripped posters.  It's a lot of fun building up layers ... with interesting and unexpected results.  You never quite know what's going to happen when you rip it off!

I used mod podge, but PVA glue or other mediums work just as well.  Brush the glue of your choice onto a painted surface and then apply some paper with text or an image, text side down. Leave the text on for about a minute or so and then pull the paper off.  Mod podge is quite a cheap product to use and I like it's matte appearance which is great for the layering part.

Here are some of my finished pieces and some details ...

These book samples tie in quite nicely with the next challenge, so here is a little glimpse ...

In case you're wondering, there was no week 15 as the material to try was Krylon "spray webbing" and I have found it's pretty hard to come by in the UK.  I especially wanted to try silver spray webbing but I couldn't get any.  I have given up with it for the time being.

Finally, if you follow my posts on your mobile phone you may have noticed a different format which I hope you may find easier to read.  If you prefer to read the website version with all my links and twiddly bits down the side bar, then there is a link at the bottom of each post for you to click on and read in the old way.  These days, there are so many techno things to consider.  Personally, I prefer to read and write on my laptop but we all seem to be "on the go" these days that I had a review of things.  Thank you, always, for reading and I would love to know what you think.