Working late

When the wash is put on, and the sizing for the gold leaf I find the picture so ugly, before the gold is applied.

Meanwhile I am also working on a small commission, no something I would normally do, but this one appealed to my romantic nature. 

Seals, sunshine, sketching.

It was good to feel the sunshine on skin as I sat above the beach of seals sketching. Good to sketch from life, though difficult balancing on the cliff top with glasses and binoculars, sketchbook and pencil. Beautiful to watch the seals and hard to pull myself away and back to the studio.

When I should be painting a cat I am thinking of love......

and musing on music for this, below. The poster was in a shop doorway in St Davids. Curious that it is also heart themed.

 

Visitors.

Today, woodpecker, starlings, blackbird, wagtail, chaffinch, bluetits and dunnocks and robins, jackdaw, rook, thrushes and even snipe.

 

And Hannah on a warm perch.

 

Finding cats

Working hard on drawings for I Am Cat and I have had help from the cats, but especialy Pixie who managed to cat-sneak into my studio in order to act as editor and designer, and life model all rolled into one.
Putting the pages together so that they work as a book, illustrate the text, add to the words, is always difficult, especialy when there are so few words.

Small sketches come first, doodling around a design, asking questions. Like dreams, in my head I can see these in colour as finished pieces, the drawings just remind me later, what goes where and how. And sometimes pages change altogether.

The sketch above is for the last but one page and I realised half way through that it needed to change to be more intimate, closer.

Still have a cougar and a leopard to find.  

 

Tap tap tippity tap tap, ping.

Thinking aloud in the pages of my sketchbook. Cheetahs and goldfinches, and clover.

 

 

The fields around here are full with clover. Amazing how beautiful these flowers are on close inspection.

 

 

Typewriters are multiplying in my studio, a small Olympia and a larger one that is more brittle. I would still like an old fashioned portable black typewriter with gold paint on. There is something about the way that you have to write on a typewriter. I think perhaps they would be good for poetry, because you have to think very carefully about what you write before your fingers begin to move as any mistaykes you mite make cannott be easily reckdefyd.

Meanwhile John Foley arived and I tormented him with paintings that were sold that he can't have for the exhibition, showed him sketches for work in mind, and seals sleeping on smooth stone beaches. We then went to The Shed at Porthgain and they fed me mussels while I signed books, so they now have a good stock, including The Ice Bear, which will be published on Thursday, the same day as Seamus Heaney's new book of poetry.

I am looking forward to seeing the photos from John's visit.

Two and two, one and seven.

Under the influence of facebook

Something small and simple can sometimes change the way a drawing looks. Both of these are the same drawing, one after doodling while talking on the phone and after reading a message on facebook.

Book signing, postcards and a bowl of cheetahs.

Days get stolen by things that need to be done. Things that aren't painting. 

Yesterday I went to The Shed to sign books for them. The restaurant was busy and smelled glorious. Back home I had started cooking a bolognaise sauce. Multi tasking. At The Shed I signed the first copies of The Ice Bear, and left them some of my postcards. Made it home in time for the sauce to be perfect.

One of the other tasks in the business of yesterday was delivering paintings to Emrys Art Shop in Haverfordwest. They are showing my work through August and should also have signed copies of books.During conversation, in in confusion I said, "I must go, I want to paint a bowl of cheetahs and a cherry." Slip of the mind leads to new sketch for a painting, the first sketches in my new book, which is heavier than the old and the paper has more grain.

 

 

Resting

Still doodling away in my old sketchbook. Both of these drawings are a direct response to a beautiful picture in Judy Dyble's house. I love the way horses do this, resting their heads in trust on each other.

 

 

Today has been otherwise, sunshine and doctors, butterflies and rose, painkillers and sleep. I almost walked away from what I hope will be an amazing project as they hit me sideways with an idea that I just could not sign up to, but thankfully have moved on from there now, so I hang in there and wait and imagine and dream, and meanwhile draw. And the pressure is off for a little now. I can loose myself in paintings and preparing for an exhibition in Long Melford in September and Nursery Rhyme chaos and cat book roughs.