Black Primulas

Spring flowers are my biggest inspiration.

I should just block off a few weeks every Spring to sit and paint because I always find the volume of yummy flowers to paint outstrips the time available.

I loved doing this piece – just one of those enjoyable coming togethers of new brushes, a new watercolour-gouache hybrid paint I was testing (its gorg) some sunshine and a good audiobook.

Whole process videos here on Insta

Garden Birds

I began this new year wanting a fresh personal project to work on and wanting to *play* a bit in my work and just follow inspiration where it led me.

That feeling also coincided with a growing interest in being able to name the birds that frequent my garden and also the purchase of a pair of binoculars.

A few months later on and I have completed my very own book of garden birds.

I dug out a few of my favourite vintage bird books for both good information and great reference pictures.

And I studied up before I began painting each feathered friend. Once you’re not in education, its easy to forget the gains from reading up and learning.

Over some months, in and amongst other work and things going on, I compiled some illustrations of birds – the only pre-requisite being that I included only birds that I’ve seen in my garden. The Jay and the Woodpecker have stopped for a nosey but not often or for very long.

I once had the magical experience of actually watching momma Wren fledge her chicks out of the nest in our hedge and chase them down the garden willing them to fly for the first time.

I had already decided to bind these paintings into a book format and so I set up the pages with that in mind.

I decided to hand write all the information pages and keep the true handmade feel through and through. I painted an abstract leaf pattern for the cover and set to putting it all together with glue and waxed string.

And I’m delighted with it in so many ways – I can use my own work to reference and teach myself and there’s something so scrummy about a handmade book which also makes a perfect place to keep a body of work intact.

If you’d like to see all the birds and the films I made of making the book and the book itself, then head over to either Instagram here or Facebook here

Hebrides painting work

As the year draws to an end, I’ve found it has galvanised me to complete the body of paintings I have been working on ever since we visited The Hebrides back in April.

I have been steadily working away filling a sketchbook and creating ideas for future pattern designs in-between all the other things I also do. I find I like to nest a bit on my work before sharing it and now I find I have a lot to show.

The thing that caught my painters eye the most in The Hebrides were the patterns these little pieces of land make as they are cut through by waterways and creeks. I have enjoyed painting them over & over. I love the way the horizon blends in as the water is reflected in the sky 

I have also played around with granulating medium recently. This salt-marsh painting in Leverburgh was perfect for it. Granulating medium separates the pigment and binder allowing the colour to settle onto the surface of the paper making lots of texture,

I’m gearing up to have a little sale of some of these pieces – so watch this space if you’re interested, Claire x

Finding the patterns

As a painter who also designs surface patterns for fabrics etc, I am always instinctively drawn to find the pattern in landcapes.

I’ve recently re-learnt the benefit of repeat drawing and painting the same scene using a variety of medias. In doing this the mind, eye and hand join forces to develop a language of mark-making to represent the landscape and as one makes more responses of the same scene, one begins to edit colours and marks too.

And for me, that’s where the ideas for future patterns begin to emerge.

Stitched Garden Landscapes – Embroidery Workshop

On Saturday 7th May I’m running a lovely workshop at Winterbourne House & Gardens, Birmingham, where we will create little garden landscapes using heat reactive dyes, fabric markers and hand stitches. I’ve also booked wall to wall sunshine so we can fully enjoy the gardens 😉

If it sounds like something you’d like to do then please book here and I look forward to seeing you there.

Embroidered garden

Finding time to create is a juggle when teaching creativity is my mainstay.

Being around students in itself is exciting and inspiring; watching them run with new concepts and dedicate their time to learning and evolving always rubs back off onto me.

So with term winding down I’ve found some spaces to attend to my own work.

And as the garden itself is less demanding in time during the Winter there was a synchronicity to using it as a muse.

The bare structure of the leaf-less plants inspired a pared down colour palette of black and white materials both to draw with and sew.

I walked from top to bottom of the garden, drawing for 2 mins here and there and created a long roll drawing which I then translated into applique, foiling and stitches (also in a long format)

With Midwinter passing yesterday and the Christmas holidays beginning tomorrow, now is a good time to take stock and plan what projects will be next.

Time machine – Shropshire in Oct

As I use my blog as a diary and also as a reminder, I’m taking the liberty of playing with chronology!

We took this break in Shropshire 2 months ago back in October but I never managed to write this in a timely fashion.

And I wanted to remember many of the good things about it and not the dark and winding lane we had to endure for 15 mins before we got anywhere from the house nor the brief visit from a rat in the floorboard cavity!

But this photo pretty much sums the rest up 🙂

The surrounding landscape was beautiful and made all the more so by moody, rainy weather some days.

And being surrounded by nature (and having slow days) makes me want to draw and paint which feels like a luxury.

As does breakfasts like these.

Lottie is getting on now (11+) and each holiday usually brings a limp or broken nail but she is undaunted by the repairs to her cruciate ligaments or her arthritis and so it’s a joy to see her dashing about the country while we’re enjoying it too.

3/3. 100dayproject

Made it!

Wow, that was a marathon adventure and like all good runners, towards then end I had to slow down rather than just stop and call it quits.

But like all things, its when you’re stretched and challenged that growth occurs.

The daily (or technically I should say sustained) practice of showing up to paint has indeed kept me creative and accountable for doing so.

And I have found that my muscle memory and my hand eye co-ordination has improved and that I’m as surprised as anyone when I can capture a plant in a few strokes of a brush and with a limited colour range.

In short, practice makes you better at looking and capturing.

Which shouldn’t surprise me really.

We know if we exercise that our muscles become stronger but probably don’t talk much in those terms of the process of practising creatively.

And we should, because it does work the same way.

I have thoroughly enjoyed naming the plants in my garden – many of which I have inherited from the previous owners or Mother Nature.

And I have a unexpected sense of satisfaction to have two books full of catalogued plant names.

But I am glad it’s finished now and as the season winds down I won’t have the challenge of finding something new to include.

With hindsight 100 was a lot and maybe 75 would have suited me just enough.

So when I calculated that there were only enough pages in the book for 96 I took that as a divine compromise 😉

2/3 100 day project

I have been falling and leaping my way through this #100dayproject of Painting Something From My Garden Everday.

It’s not quite been everyday in a daily sense – more like nothing some days and three things another.

But for the most part it’s become a regular practice and I’ve kept up…just.

Some days I accepted a less than polished finished piece in favour of doing something rather than nothing.

I’ve also embraced my garden weeds and found them to be pretty and deserving of a place in the final book.

I’ve developed a mix of approaches to method and media.

On some rainy days I was forced to complete the work inside and I found the results were far better than when I’m painting irl.

However the feeling of, the experience of painting outside is far greater and brought a greater deal of well-being that gets lost as soon as it becomes studio work.

And I have enjoyed playing again with coloured pencils, pastels and collages solutions to painting white flowers on white paper.

That’s about it for now as things reach the final stretch – thank you for reading.

1/3 of 100 days

I am a third of the way through my #100daysproject of painting 100 things growing in my garden.

Any sustained effort on a project has highs and lows; I have had days of lag and disinterest, days where time is just too short and I fall behind and days of joy and peace found painting in quiet spots.

Mostly it’s been a good discipline. A bit too time consuming on some days.

But I’m loving having a little book recording my garden growing.

And above all it’s forced me to identify and name all the plants I’m recording which has been very enlightening and informative.

On with the next!