HARASSED BUT HAPPY

I suppose we shall be ready in time for Open Studios.  I am feeling harassed but happy!

I have even managed a hair cut since I painted this little oil sketch!

I am excited about the paintings I have done this summer and I look forward to showing them to you if you come to see me at 

Venue 142 during SAW Open Studios 17 September - 2 October 

we are open every day 11 am - 6 pm and details are in the SAW guide

Here are three little paintings, all four are 20 x 20 cm - there are lots of bigger ones

FIVE MONTHS HAVE PASSED......

It is five months since I last sat here, with my lap top, to write a blog post. Time to take up the quill again?

I have done only a little painting since then. I quite like a few pictures I made of Parc Parmentier in October. This is a detail of one of them , in a looser style than those I showed in Art Week. The sun is getting lower, some of the trees have leaves still but some are fallen......

water colour, charcoal and pencil on paper

Christmas over, I travelled again to Belgium  on New Years Eve.  Mostly sitting around eating drinking and reading and visiting family. But mostly luxuriating in being with Lutje again after two and half months!  And sleeping a lot! Is it being almost 76 ?
Just a little drawing to get used to being  back, upstairs, in the studio.  Looking in a shaving mirror on  an easel this is what i saw

Two very rapid ink sketches on paper. Noodlers pen and Noodlers ink

A day or two later, on Facebook, I was nominated by an artist friend, Alison Jacobs, to take up the challenge of producing a black  and white photo a day for five days.  Maybe the drawings above made me take a "selfie" for the first one?

Alison's images are made with her iPad. I have only a little Nexus tablet with no camera facing outwards.  This was made and modified in the nexus,  later I  may use a camera.  I shall probably post them here as well or you can find them on my Facebook page

PACKING AND SORTING

Only two working days before I have to return to UK and I am sorting out some of the work I have done this summer,, so that I can make a big parcel and post it back ready for SAW and open studios . It seems really good value via Belgian post. But it does not work the other way and Royal mail!!

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I have just had the normal trauma with brown packing tape. You know how you can't find the end and, when you think you have, it tears and comes off in little icky strips and is just a nuisance?  I realised, just now, that it dates from my last packing session here and that was two summers ago. It is time for a new roll.  So until this afternoon the parcel is sitting looking like this. (two acrylic abstracts and three oil still life)

 I have done a lot of drawings and paintings of fruit and veg which will go in my suitcase. Here are a few

 These, above and below, are in oil on panels 20 x 20 cm 

these are watercolour and pencil, watercolour, and mixed media

I have also done many drawings and the odd painting (very odd!) of myself. I have never before  been into self portraits and it is worrying. I look a bit scary? Is the world ready for this. maybe i shall be braver tomorrow!

I am really looking forward to Art week, so much to do yet.
 Bridgwater potter Lesley Cooper is sharing with me which will be great.  Come and see us!

be adaptable ...change is good for you?

back in the autumn, and after prolonged discussions over comfort and matters feng shui , a new sofa (self assembly of course) was delivered from

it is so very comfortable, geriatric knees can cope with exit and entrance 

and I can almost understand Flemish TV when ensconced in it

maar

the HUGE cardboard crate was a bit of a problem

 I cut it up in tidy pieces to take in the car, later,  to be recycled

we stored it, pro temp, in the studio but it was an eyesore, it blocked the door,  until, coming home after a few weeks away I decided to paint on a few pieces, to loosen myself up

 

and then I thought .....

this is fun!

I will keep the card and use it ..... and I did (but you will have to wait for my next post!)

looking back over 2012 ....... pt 2 Somerset Arts Weeks

Once again in the second half of September we opened the house for the Open Studios in Somerset Art Weeks.  Once again it was fun; we met many interesting people, sold a few pictures and, best of all, the house got a thorough cleaning from top to bottom.

Flemish apple cake by better half - painting by me

nonchalantly placed visitors book 

we really did have visitors!