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…but I’ve been interviewed over here on Blog’s From Around The World.
As I grow older my memory gets worse, so I found myself this afternoon going through the last year of photo’s muttering “Was that this year? Really?” The above photo says a lot of what this year has brought. It’s easy to forget once it’s passed, where you’ve been and the fear and risks taken, but to end the year with six paintings in two local shows has been my biggest dream come true this year.
I stuck to my painting day like it was real work (tongue is in cheek there) and made it a habit. Out of that came all this painting and creativity and peace and sanity. I kept going and found I’d built a body of work which I could call a portfolio. I finally learnt how to use Photoshop and found endless possibilities open up. I approached a new gallery and continued to have selections for an exisiting one.
It would also appear that I make a lot of cakes! Some for birthday’s other just because I feel like the world is the right way up if there is cake in the tin to be eaten.
We moved house after eleven long years in a beautiful house which saw us bring up our babies. It was a wrench. But we moved only five minutes away and I’ve never looked back. This house has space in abundance, the woods on hand like an extra garden and so many opportunities for decorating (tongue back in cheek). I’d even forgotten the garden furniture fiasco (six days to paint with the wrong paint). Then there is my studio space which is the cherry, and icing and sprinkles, on top of the cake.
The support and love of friends and family is hard to document here as not many want their pic’s on the web but you underscore everything I am and do. Even our pets play a big part – with one miracle guinea-pig surviving the death knoll of the vet.
There has been an abundance of sewing (a new quilt made) trying to crochet, learning to crochet and then actual real, useable crochet!
And then there’s you. Some of whom I feel I know because we exchange comments online, my friends and family and those of you who drop by anonymously. Thank you for enjoying my blog, or using it or being inspired by it.
I wish all of you a light-filled, peaceful New Year. Claire x
Here’s a little tour…
Room to have fake flowers, tins, stained glass and other still life props out to be enjoyed.
I don’t think this chair is staying as it’s needed else where but I’m going to look out for a replacement as it’s lovely to sit up there and dream.
Hope you enjoyed this picture tour, I know I’m the luckiest girl alive to have this space. Thanks for all the lovely comments this week.
Do you remember this little trip I made earlier in the year?
It seemed like a crazy idea to buy an AO size planchest before moving house but as we watched the removal men lumbering up three flights of stairs with it, we knew we’d made the right decision not to buy it and carry it up ourselves after the event!
Then when it got moved into the studio for the first time, there was a moment when my heart sunk and I thought ‘It’s SO huge – too huge”. It seemed to fill up the light airy space in one go.
That feeling was short-lived once I’d got unpacking and could fit everything I wanted to and more into this beautiful beast. And the top of it makes great work space too. So it was a lot of fun recently to label it up and finish it off. It’s been the biggest but best risk so far and I wouldn’t live without it now.
Thanks for all the birdbox love and comments – really appreciate hearing from you 
We recently had a wallpaper sample book on loan from the Pip Studio collection. It was beautiful! Full of gorgeous papers and fabrics and quirky ideas. I will show you the book sometime soon because I photographed every page such was its inspiration! On one page were some paper birdhouses made out of the wallpapers in the collection. And this got me started on a little studio decoration project.
I’m not one for reading or writing instructions much – I prefer to follow the pictures! So I hope you can see the process clearly enough through these photo’s. I covered the inside back wall of the bird house in black paper so that once it was constructed you couldn’t see through the hole to white card. Getting the base and roof on was a bit fiddley and in hindsight I might have fixed the base as much as possible before it became three dimensional.
Like all things that you’re not ‘meant’ to be doing, it was the best fun I’ve had in ages!
It was a great way to put on show some of the lovely papers I’ve hoarded over the years and I look up and remember people who’ve wrapped presents for me in them, or holidays I’ve been on where I’ve bought paper to bring home. It’s a bit like having a wall of photo’s to keep memories alive.
I had to have these vintage birds from eBay one Christmas, which have since sat wrapped in a box waiting for a special moment that has taken 3 or 4 years to come!
It was fun to style them up once I got going, digging out long forgotten treasures.
I read recently that you should follow your instinct to create whatever is making your heart inflate, and I have to say I agree. There is certainly enough to do around here at the moment but to step off the merry-go-round and spend a few hours on a purely fun project was like a little holiday.
As you can see, after all the research and grand ideas for displaying inspirational material, I opted for keeping it large and simple! All we have here is pin board painted white (many times I must tell you :/ ) but it is the largest pinboard I’ve seen outside of the school that I work in, and it’s the size that makes it so great; loads can be put up all at once.
It’s like a visual interpretation of my brain! I can see at least four themes up there that are going on inside my head at the moment. I tend to remember things visually so it was a relief to pin it all up and not have to keep remembering them.
When we moved into this house in July we knew which room we wanted to transform first. Up on the top floor was a large, bright room with a huge skylight window, and it had been earmarked for my new studio space. My excitement drove me to strip the walls two days after we’d moved in! Four months later it has been renovated, had water installed, decorated and been used and lived in for a while. And I’d love to show it to you, beginning with this little project…
This paper bunting came about because I had ‘painting block’ following the house move and because I knew I wanted bunting up in my new studio but wanted something more authentic to me as a painter rather than a sewer (although I love to do both).
I began by doodling some plants and animals out of a favourite old book in order to get some painting going again. Then I stretched a whole sheet of brown paper onto a table top. Once it had dried taut again I cut out the triangles and also some lettering to read “Paint Drops Keep Falling”.
I glued a letter and a few painted motifs to each triangle and then coated it with a layer of PVA glue to ‘varnish’ it. Once it was all dried it wasn’t hard to peel it from the table as it hadn’t stretched tight completely. Then I cut them out and backed them with plain ‘varnished’ triangles.
I bought some bakers twine, which is lovely and soft. Then I folded over each top flap on every triangle making a pocket for the twine, and in this way strung them all together. You could make a paper banner for anything…I’d toyed with a ‘Noel’ one for Christmas. I’ll show you the rest of the display board in a few days. Have a good week
