Sunshine, ice and mummified Barbies.

Well, it’s been half-term, and I’ve been enjoying my children. One trip to London (I could almost see the doors opening in my eldest daughter’s mind), friends round for a party, more friends round for tea, and gingerbread men to be baked (and eaten). This week, technically, was back-to-work, but as all artists-with-children realise, it’s difficult to get down to things when you spend a good hour looking for that masking tape, only to realise it’s been used in a vibrant (and imaginative, yes) game of ‘Tutankhamen’ – in other words, Mummify That Barbie. I’m torn between pride (best thing you can do to Barbie, really) and sticky exasperation. Youngest daughter has decided that her favourite reading matter is Pink magazine. Alas, it has little to do with Gay Rights, less to do with an ironic take on the punk rock movement, and is full of twirly (pink) ballerinas and smiling (pink) bears. I am tempted to start, singlehandedly, an Ironic Mommas Underground movement, and design a Pink magazine full of O’Keefe drawings, analysis of the contents of lipgloss (slimy fat, pigment made from beetles) and How to Mummify Your Barbie tips, but it might not sell.

And I have gotten some work done. The weather was gorgeous for photographs. Ice, sunshine, and the ice half-melted, half frozen. I have enough on my plate with the hedge pictures, and coast pictures, to not want to take on more, but I’ll hang on to these in the back of my head and see if I can do something with them properly another day. I even, at one point, braved the cold and took out my sketchbook, which is where the small watercolour comes from.

Mainly Mermaids, one castle, tonsils.

Well, it’s been longer than I like before posting here. I mean, a nice teasy gap is all well and good, but Over a Week? I blame both my tonsils (wildly inflamed) and my Personal Life (ditto), which occasionally draws me inexorably away from a computer screen, kicking and screaming as I am dragged.

All is now as sane as it will get for some time, and I have Mainly been Drawing Mermaids in my absence. One has turned out (rather unfairly) as a kind of Joan Crawford brazen hussy of a dyed blonde despite her watercolor (she is going to return to natural brown tomorrow, and it will suit her much better). The other is a sadder pencil drawing, which I think is nicer, but probably will not sell. Joan will undoubtedly sell. And soon I shall draw a less brazen Joan which will work even better and might contribute to my quest for Nice New Boots.

One trip to Ludlow, in the rain, but the castle always looks nice (it was Closed). How can a castle be Closed? It was very walkaroundable, and the views, although damp, were still romanticky and quite sad.

To cheer me up, as I walked us home in the rain, my youngest daughter (five) told her first ever joke:

Rosie: I have a joke for you.

What do you get if you cross a cat and a rabbit?

Me: I don’t know

Rosie: A woolly jumping.

Me: Hahaha. Very good darling.

Rosie: I made it up. Did it work? Was it funny?

Me: Not really, no. But it was nice anyway.

Rosie: It’s meant to be what if you cross a pig…err…and a sheep…and a trampoline. And you get a woolly jumper. So I changed it, it’s jumping (jumps up and down). Do you see? Jumping.

The pictures are of mermaids. Why not. It is January, after all. We had chocolate eclairs for tea to celebrate the joke.

Drenched treasure.

Well, it was an inauspicious morning to go out for a walk – drizzle, and the children just strapped onto the school bus. But good things seem to be happening at the moment, and I’m very glad that I plodded up the muddy hill. A storm was blowing in from the East, and all to the left was a golden light, and to the right, clouds racing and movement in the bare trees. I took several pictures, but these seemed to me the best ones, and their colours seemed to pervade the rest of the day – golden, faded, illuminating the world differently to the normal grey January day-after-day, like the quince and the blossom in the hedge outside a huge Edwardian house which I pass nearly every morning.
I’ve started a watercolour. I’ve been trying for some time to get rid of the ink lines – they’re too harsh for me at present, and too defined. Fine for doodling, but I want to play with colour a bit more – do some work reminiscent of the long bluey-greeny silk banners I made one Summer a long time ago – all swirly colour and dip dyed. I’m pleased with it – at the stage where I’m a bit unsure of touching it for a bit, in case I Spoil It Completely. Which has happened before to pictures half-way through.

All swooshy, muted colours – 1930’s faded wallpaper colours – gold the colour of the sky this morning, blue the colour of the clouds. Let’s see if I can pull this one off, then.

Blue trees and rhubarb pie.

Well, yesterday I made that blue picture, because I wanted to do some painting without ink lines, and felt a bit like painting trees at dusk. I’m in two minds about it. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I think it looks like a bad Christmas card. Although that’s inevitable, what with it being Tree and Snow. Dhurr.

Today I made an exciting peg bag for my Mother, because she wanted one. Lovely and delightful as it is (it has rabbits on it), I shall probably not be photographing it for here. Instead I will tell you about Vasnetsov Samolet, because I was looking up pictures of flying carpets, and I really like this one.

Why am I looking up pictures of flying carpets? Because I want to photoshop my oldest daughter much as I did my youngest (that’ll be badly, then), for Christmas, and for practise. I thought she might like being on a flying carpet. But things could change. There’s that bed in bedknobs and broomsticks, or I could paint up a big patchwork balloon. Or a pedal-power flying machine, or, and, or, and.

On Carpets:

I love them. They’re beautiful, and interesting, and properly functional.
They have stories in them, which makes them even more glorious.
They have traditions attatched to them all over.
They are metaphoric treasure.
They are real-life treasure.
I read a fantasy book ages ago about a carpet. But I can’t remember who wrote it.

At the moment we’re all Narnia crazy, because Daddy very, very kindly lent our household his BBC Tales of Narnia (the oldish one – very teatime drama). But I spoilt the mood by serving Rhubarb Pie and Custard for tea.

The Mead has Stopped Fermenting and is Clearing in the Cold Room. The Apricot wine is ready, but tastes mainly of Old Sock.

Blackberry Hill

Yesterday, we went out for a picnic, and blackberry picking, to a place we know, near our cottage. My best friend, who has lived round here all her life, assures me that there used (not when she was a child, but before that) to be a cottage here. Now there’s just an uneven mound of blackberry thickets and nettles. But I think it’s exciting, and interesting – here and there I wonder if I can spot the remains of a garden – a plant gone wild, or some bricks. You can’t go there without imagining who might have lived in that house, once, long ago.

I have been working, too, of course. Five watercolour postcards, and playing with some altered book images. But for now, lets dwell on the blackberries.

Etsy team cloud challenge

I’m not sure whether to do more to her, but I’m working on Cloud Woman here, for the etsy Uk August challenge.

Last night, a friend of mine who has been clearing out her Mum’s garage, found some old brooches she wore as a child, and showed me this one (I hung on to it to scan it through, because it’s just so pretty)

painting

Hello…
I’m sarah-jane, a painter and illustrator based in the UK. I use pen, ink and watercolour paints, plus some textiles, and I’ve just started putting pictures in galleries on the internet! Very exciting!

Oh, I have children – most of my sucessful pictures feature them in some way, even if the way is hidden, and I like reading, cooking, gardening. The usual things. Life is a bit chaotic at the moment, as I’m frantically working – pen in one hand, brush in the other, bread in another, doll between my teeth, bears under my arms – and as every parent working from home during the school holidays knows…that delicate tightrope balancing juggling dance. That’d be something to paint in between Indian Elephants.
I’ve just found a lovely site in Etsy (here), and another one (which I only just got on to this morning) in Trunkt (here). There are some fantastically super-lovely artist and craftspeople on both sites. I’m really excited at the standard of work there. Lovely illustrations in particular, and some of the jewellery is really swoon-worthy. *sigh* Yes, I will post links.
The Master Plan is to get my stuff sorted, then I can really look around and enjoy myself. So, cross fingers, touch wood, circle the magpies I’ll be able to sit and meet some people there in between all this bear-juggling.