And it was lovely! Thank you to everyone that came along on Friday 28th June.

Filling that big hall with work has given me sleepless nights. Pictures that seem vast in my studio diminish in size as they are carried up the Museum’s grand staircase. But it did all fit, and I have to say that I was very proud of how it’s all come together.

It’s years worth of work, pretty much. I was sat by Lake Annecy last July, with a notebook drawing out a plan. A plan that began with a map! We were all sat around with our noses in books of one kind or another. Robin was sat with his feet in the water reading The Count of Monte Cristo. I was scribbling. I’m always scribbling when really I should be reading more books.

I decided I simply wanted to celebrate Calderdale. I’m not a historian; I’m a fan! I wanted it to be all about what a nice place this is to live. I think I can say that because I chose here. I came from Suffolk to Yorkshire in 1995. To Calderdale in 2005. I’ve lived in Hebden Bridge longer than I’ve lived anywhere.

I started off at my end of the Calder Valley, in Todmorden and Cragg Vale:

The heart of Todmorden always feels like the Town Hall – which is pretty damn impressive for a town the size of Tod. Stoodley Pike monument is in the distance, the Unitarian Church high on the hill. St Mary’s Church in the centre and the market building and the stripy market stalls. Then the town library and Water Street. When the blue fronted shop was The Bear Cafe, I used to take the twins for a treat. Robin poked a small red car into a hole in the floorboards upstairs. It was just the right size and impossible to resist! There was no getting it back and there was quite a fuss. Someone will find it one day. The legendary Golden Lion (I toyed with the idea of making it yellow!), and the marina with the metal fish. I like Tod a lot.

Cragg Vale always feels so quiet and seperate. The twins play in a Christmas concert at the church every year. It’s usually frosty and the tree in the church yard is swaithed in fairy lights. In spring this point is the end of leg one, and the beginning of leg two of The Calder Relay Fell Race. The Hinchliffe Pub appears over the bridge. The gate house for the Hinchliffe’s lost house, New Cragg Hall, is further up the hill, the Vicarage (also built by the Hinchliffes) appears between the trees. This painting took the longest time. Started first in September, and it was finished at the end of May. Some paintings are like that; they take a while to decide. I like the shadows in this one.

The next one was ‘Halifax – Toffee Town’ – which I think is my favourite. I wanted to wrap (almost) all of my favourite Halifax buildings around The Piece Hall. Can you spot: The Wainhouse Tower, Crossley Heath, Bankfield Museum and All Souls Church? Dean Clough, North Bridge, the old Mackintosh chocolate factory and the old Art School on Queens Road. Harveys Department Store, The Piece Hall, The Victoria Theatre (I was there on Saturday for the girl’s dance show! I love it and every year I cry). The old picture house (below the Victoria), Square Chapel, Square Church Spire, the Industrial Museum, Halifax Minster, Borough Market, the old Burton building and Halifax Town Hall. The current Chocolate Factory in the Flour Society Building and Eureka children’s museum, along the bottom near the railway arches. The Shay stadium had to be included for my friend Mick, who was a Shayman to the end. I think he’d have approved, or laughed. The tiles at the bottom are the colours of Quality Street wrappers, and in amongst them are some of the birds from the stained glass at Shibden Hall.

Hebden Bridge next. My home town! I’ve painted it often. This time I wanted it to be all about the waterways meeting and crossing. At the top is the steep Keighley Road and the posh houses (known locally as ‘Snob Row’) on Birchcliffe. The bridges layer on top of one another down the centre of the picture: St George’s Bridge at the top, then the packhorse bridge, the main road bridge, the footbridge linking the two schools (school bridge!), then the aquaduct that carries the canal over the point where Hebden Water and the River Calder meet. On the left can you spot: Windsor Road, Linden Mill, the Town Hall, the old Hole in’t Wall pub (now Hope Gallery), the pretty house that always has optimistic washing out on Old Gate, Heart Gallery (who stock my work) in the old Arts Centre building and the back of Primrose Terrace on the tow path? On the right: Stubbings school, The White Lion, Innovation Mill, Hope Baptist Church, the Picture House, and the Trades Club!

I’m wrtiting about them in the order they were painted. It’s as good a way as any. The last one in this first set is ‘Sowerby Bridge’. I’m in Sowerby Bridge often as Rob at Knight Graphics is my long suffering printer. He does a wonderful job and is endlessly patient with me being a colour pedant.

I’ve tried to capture as many Sowerby Bridge landmarks as I can in one painting. The town is dominated by huge mill buildings that have been demolished in other parts of Calderdale. The weight of the town seems to be towards the bottom – by the river, lower than the canal. Sowerby Bridge’s industry was more for building the machinery for the textile trade, than for the textile trade itself. At the bottom of the painting is Dugdale Ltd formerly ‘Wood Bros – Engineers and Millwrights’. The railway arches seem to divide the lower valley from the lighter valley above. The beautiful building with the domed clock tower was once the town hall, and then Lloyds Bank. Far left (and out of sight in reality) is The Puzzle Hall Inn, along from the bottom of the footbridge over the canal and tow path. To the right is The Bull on the Bridge, and behind that The Blind Pig. The Navigation Inn is at the far right of the painting. There were a lot of important pubs to try and fit into this picture! The Canal Wharf is where the Calder & Hebble Navigation and the Rochdale Canal meet. Christ Church, at the bottom of Tuel Lane, and the huge Corporation Mill behind the main street.

Most important are the legendary Sowerby Bridge Geese. Hebden Bridge has geese too (often holding up the traffic on the main road and opposite my house), but I believe the Sowerby Bridge geese came first, and have their own Facebook Page. I had fun fitting them into tiles inspired by William de Morgan.

‘Engineers & Chocolatiers’ is filling the entrance hall at Bankfield Museum until December 21st 2024. Please go and see it! The museum is open 10am til 4pm. It is closed on Sundays and Mondays.

At the end of June this year I shall be holding a new exhibition at Bankfield Museum in Halifax. I was invited as part of ‘Culturdale’ – a celebration of all things Calderdale.

We played around with all sorts of titles and themes. ‘The Industrialists’ – too formal. Too much about what’s gone. ‘Legacy’ – was met with much scoffing. “Too much mentioned in wills”. I was trying to come up with a title that was unique to Calderdale and what shaped it. One day I jokingly said “Okay – how about ‘Engineers and Chocolatiers”. That’s all the mills, all the bridges and the canals, and the factories. Toffee was invented in Halifax. Sweets are made in Elland. And they all laughed and said “YES!”. Who wouldn’t want to come and see an exhibition with chocolate in the title?

So… ‘Engineers & Chocolatiers” it is.

I have a big map of Calderdale on my studio wall and have spent months trying to find a way in to the project. The hall at Bankfield is big and daunting, and I have to fill it. I want the paintings to be about the whole of Calderdale; from Todmorden at one end to Brighouse at the other.

Here’s Todmorden. I tried to find all the landmarks – places that were important – and patchworked them together in some kind of logical order. The Town Hall always seems to be at the heart of the town, and everything else wraps around it. There’s the canal and the legendary Golden Lion. The market, the churches, Water Street.

I was at a Christmas concert at the Unitarian Church in December. My twins play in the junior band and they, along with many other groups, were there to raise money for the building. It was so cold (we all bought hot water bottles and blankets), but it was such a vast and joyful gathering. It was the whole of the community under one, leaky roof. But filled with singing and mulled wine and candles and fairy lights.

Next up was Halifax. For me The Piece Hall is the heart of the town. It’s a rare and beautiful thing, and it’s currently putting Halifax back on the map. Seriously – who’d have imagined a Marvel Movie, or Blondie and Bryan Adams coming to Halifax?

And then there are the buildings that are less loved but still so beautiful, like the old Art School on Queens Road. I think this may be the most complicated painting I’ve ever done. There were just so many incredible buildings to get in. Obviously the chocolate factory is important – and with the Quality Street association, I wanted an Elmer style patchwork of wrappers to form tiles at the bottom. There will be many places I’ve missed, but I did manage to get the Shay Stadium in there, and Eureka!, at the insistence of my children.

Christmas in my family is never quiet. We’re a big, close family, but we’re spread about. So after hosting Christmas in Hebden Bridge, we travelled around a lot, visiting family and friends. We spent a few days visiting an old haunt from my childhood. The last time we were there was pre-Covid and it seemed to be thriving. Definitely ‘on the up’ as they say. But I was horrified at how desolate it’s become in the last 4 years. 65% of the shops empty. Building projects begun and abandoned. It was so sad. And walking to the heart, I saw how no one cared about where they lived any more.

I know I’m an outsider. I’m an ‘offcumden’. But sometimes it takes an outsider to notice. Calderdale is spectacular. Being proud of where you live is so important. I decided, driving back North after Christmas, that this whole exhibition is about being proud of where we live.

Now, I know my corner of Calderdale well, but I need some help identifying where is important to the communities of towns I know less well. I would really appreciate some help. I’m planning paintings of the following places and would love some suggestions:

Brighouse

Sowerby Bridge

Luddenden

Greetland and Elland

Rishworth and Ripponden

As well as the towns, i would like to paint the moors as well, so If anyone has suggestions for

Heptonstall Moor

Luddenden Dean

The Shibden Valley

Norland Moor

Elland Moor

Either comment, or email me. I’d be very grateful.

I’m taking this Halifax painting to a school in Shelf this afternoon. I want to see how many places they recognise.

I don’t know what happened this year. I’m usually so ready for my children to be back at school – mainly because I’m panicking about the jobs that are piling up, and I’m quite ready for some quiet creative time. Maybe they’re older and easier, need less organising. They definitely help more. They are so interesting! Anyway – for the first time, I’ve not quite wanted summer to end. We had some great adventures in ‘Henri’ – our camper van. Henri is new to us and we’re new at campervaning, so this was a bit of a major maiden voyage. But what with GCSE revision and bad weather in the months leading up to this, we never managed to get much practice in. Still – go big or go home. We did a BIG first trip.

In France – A little sailing, paddle boarding (not me) and a summer Luge!

After the Lakeland 50 I was quite ready to just sit for a bit and we did a lot of that in around Lake Annecy. Sitting and reading, and eating a lot of french bread!

My Mum and Dad marked their Golden Wedding in August and had asked that ALL their children come and help them celebrate (which is why I wasn’t at Art in the Pen in August). A good half way point between Budapest (my big sister is there) and Yorkshire is Bavaria, where we all gathered. From Annecy we drove through Switzerland. It was not a favourite part of the holiday! We had to do a ‘wing it’ stop which is tricky with 5 in a camper. It was very hot and a very tight squeeze. German neighbours in a large motorhome found the idea of all 5 of us in a van you could practically park inside theirs very funny!

I love being part of a big family. I’m the quiet, cautious sister. I wish I wasn’t – it’s just the way it is. But I love being on the edge of a gathering and seeing everyone play and get along. As well as Mum and Dad, there are 3 daughters and husbands, and 9 Grandchildren, ranging from 6 to 24. That’s quite a gathering. We needed a lot of space and lot of food! My favourite thing all week was a Thursday evening chip cook-off with Daniel and my two brothers-in-law cooking. Think Great British Bake-off, but all being done outside, by candle light in a spectacular 3 hour Bavarian thunderstorm.

There was another German family staying in the grounds, sharing communal space. One of them said ‘I love your family. It is so Harmonious’. I like that. We must always try and be harmonious.

After a week of us all together, is was just us 5 in Henri Van again, starting the journey back home, with a few more stops. How lovely is Freiburg??

Unfortunately our full day there was a Sunday so not one of the beautiful shops was open. Instead we did galleries and I gathered patterns. It was so, so hot that in the afternoon we did what the locals do; sat with our feet in the river and read books (though two of our party may have been also looking for treasure. There’s always something to find: patterns, bottle tops, pretty stones…).

A French stop, an English stop, and back just in time for Hattie to collect her GCSE results on Thursday morning. Being away was the perfect distraction, but the morning of results day was tense in our house! She’s worked so hard and the look on her face when she sprinted out of the school hall with her envelope told us everything. She was so happy. She and her friends had agreed not to share their results, only to tell each other if they were pleased. That way no one felt out-done. Isn’t that lovely? I couldn’t be prouder of my beautiful eldest daughter. Here is a picture of her ‘Congratulations on being brilliant Converse Trainers’:

She’s off to Greenhead College. A level Art; well, of course…

A few days out with the visiting Aussie relations seem to have been mostly spent climbing and hiding in trees.

And then, because it was so unexpectedly fine and it would be rude not to, one last trip of the summer to the East Coast!

If you made it to the end then, crikey – well done. I didn’t intend this to be so long! There’s nothing really creative in this blog post. Just family, and sunshine. But I have been planning. Something big is happening next summer for which I shall need a lot of help from the people of Calderdale. I’m running the Yorkshireman Marathon tomorrow (In this heat!), and then I’m done with playing and back to work!

I’m not going to lie; I almost bit off more than I could chew with this exhibition. Turns out that there are A LOT of letters in the alphabet. I got to letter 12 and said to myself “I don’t think you’ve thought this through…”. But I did it. I even did an ‘X’!

I’ve displayed them framed all together and on little clipboards at Heart Gallery (they can be bought as the full set, or individually). You can see the individual letters here.

The very last painting I completed before my final trip to the framers was this one:

Of all the new pieces it was probably the first one I planned, and that would have been several years ago. I love the way that these three features line up perfectly as you decend the path from Pecket Well: Stoodley Pike, Heptonstall Church, Pecket Well Monument (often called Little Stoodley (or ‘Steve Pike’ by my daughter one day in the back of the car who announced that it was Stoodley’s little brother)). It’s a view I know so well and in all seasons. There was a particular light and a particular season I wanted to catch so I kept having to go back there to check how spring was progressing. Spring comes later to the tops than the valley bottom in some places, so the hawthorne was almost over on one side of the valley and only just emerging up there. The goldfinches were a bonus though. I love the way goldfinches chatter; it’s like they’re gossiping.

The painting sold first at the Private View at the gallery on May 11th, though it will stay on the wall for a while yet. I met the people that bought it; it’s important to know that favourite pictures are going to nice people! I’d grown very attached to this one.

One of the first paintings I started was this one of the bridge and the waterfall in Nutclough woods.

I kept going back to the woods with this piece. And it’s quite big, so it wasn’t easy! I don’t usually paint outside but I needed to see this one in situ because I couldn’t get the intensity of colour quite right. The scene is so rich in colour: the coppers so deep and that bright green almost yellow. Someone at the exhibition said they could see the wind in the trees and I loved that!

My friend Nancyann says that this painting is like a great big lung full!

It’s the descent from Stoodley Pike via Swillington. The Skylarks round here are one of the earliest signs of spring coming. They start at the end of February and they get louder until June. Right now the grasses on the moors are full of them and on the Swillington path they swoop low from one side to the other (they nest in the tussocks). As an incomer, cottongrass always excites me. It’s like stars, or snow! It’s beautiful. These two things are particularly synonymous with Erringdon Moor and the Pike.

The private view for HOME was lovely – thank you to everyone that came! The exhibition runs until the end of July.

Heart gallery is stocking all of the new limited edition giclee prints and wood engraving. From June 11th they will start to be available in other galleries and on line. I do this to try and encourage visitors to the gallery to see the exhibition.

I’m counting down the weeks now until my exhibition – ‘HOME’ opens at Heart Gallery in Hebden Bridge. Painting these has got me through the darker winter months which always seem hard in the valley. It’s been good seek beautiful things here; a bit of colour maybe in the more monochromatic months. A reason to head up hill in search of a bit of light!

It’s been a decade since I began exhibiting at Heart Gallery. Five years since the ‘Craggs and Fells’ exhibition. This time it’s been all about what makes the valley feel like home. Little things you only notice because you’re so familiar with a place and its changing light. This is the most recent one – called ‘New Years Day’, because there’s a point, around Christmas, where I lose the light in my house for a few weeks (I live right in the valley bottom). On Market Street, soon after the winter solstice, the old Zion chapel gets lit up like gold by the winter sun.

Then you know the days are getting longer again – it feels very optimistic. The light was spectacular this January and I’d often head out early with my camera and notebook (working fast with very cold hands!). On one such walk I stumbled across this view across the canal.

Fountain Street always feels like an iconic Hebden Bridge street and I’ve been trying to find a way to paint it for years.

There are two moorland landscapes almost finished as well. I’ve been away in Wiltshire for a week, visiting my family, and had to run to Stoodley Pike this morning to check on the curlews and skylarks. I love the sound of the birds up there! There were plenty of skylarks down near Mum and Dad, but never curlews. I sometimes have to send a little video to Dad, so he can hear them.

There will be 11 paintings in all, and (hopefully!) my Hebden Bridge A – Z of tiny wood engravings! I’ll post more about those once I’ve completed the three new ones I started this week: N – for Nelsons. T – for Trades. I – for Innovation Mill…

The exhibition opens properly on May 12th and will run until the end of July. There will be a private view on the evening of the 11th. If you’d like an invitation, then please drop me a line.

It’s far too long since I last did this! I’m sorry – I’m always someone who’d rather be getting painty hands than sitting in front of a computer. Consequestly this will be a Christmas and everything else I’ve been doing, all at once kind of Blog post…

I didn’t take part in the Hebden Makes Christmas event this weekend. It clashed with the twin’s birthday and I am no good at being two people at once. I either need to be all Mummy, or all work, and I didn’t want to short change them. Instead we went to see The Lion King in Manchester – which was amazing (despite the second worst train journey in living memory). We did get to mooch around the studios and fairs on Saturday though and it looked amazing! I bought many things, many of them not gifts for other people. Next year, if it goes ahead again, I hope to take part as an exhibitor.

So, if anyone still has gaps in their Christmas shopping, I have opened my last box of calendars this week.

And lanterns are a lovely gift to cheer people I think. We love candles in our house.

I wanted to share with you my favourite pictures from this year. I had an exhibition at Chantry House Gallery in June ‘Whispering Ruins’ – and I was especially proud of these two: Byland Marshes I visited for the first time in Autumn 2021. It’s a wonderfully atmospheric place. I was a student in York so I have so many happy memories of sitting in the Museum Gardens with books and picnics.

‘Evening at Shibden‘ I painted earlier this year and auctioned for the Ukraine Appeal. And ‘Spindrift – Whitby‘ painted in the summer, but of a February trip. So cold and bright. The sea was amazing that day. I do love Whitby…

I think I love the paintings best when they capture something about the temperature or the day that I can’t quite define. Usually I don’t quite know how it happened so I can’t repeat it! My paintings are full of happy accidents and sometimes the paint just does what it wants to do. At Open Studios, people often ask if I do classes. I do now have the space in the mill studio, but I need to first work out how the paintings have happened before I can show anyone else!

I’ll be working on print orders this week and next, so it’s not too late for print orders. I send prints using FedEx, so these are not being affected by the postal strikes. For everything else I am endeavoring, on principle, to support my local post office. But we’re sending out as promptly as we can to avoid the backlog.

The last day for print orders will be midday on December 14th.
For all other orders, by midday on December 16th.
This last date is what’s recommended on the Royal Mail website.

Looking forward to 2023, I have been working hard on work for a new exhibition called ‘HOME’, which will open at Heart Gallery in late April. I plan about 10 paintings, all of the Calder Valley. I haven’t had an exhibition at Heart since ‘Crags and Fells’ 2018, and 2023 will mark 10 years since my very first exhibition with Alison in April of 2013! It’s been lovely to gt back to hills and washing, and favourite views.These are the two I’ve finished so far:

From Birchcliffe, down towards The White Lion. And Gibson Mill back in the hot, sunny July of this year. I’m also attempting an overly ambitious project of a Hebden Bridge A-Z! I began to learn wood engraving this year (It’s something I have always wanted to do) and the only way to get good at it is practice! So, I figured I had 26 chances to improve. The rules I have set myself are that:

• I can only use practice blocks. These are small blocks, usually around 5 x 7cm. Bigger blocks are easier in some ways, but also quite expensive and therefore daunting to hone your skills on!
• I don’t have to do the letters in order
• I don’t have to think of an ‘X’
• I am not allowed to do a letter more than once. I have to finish and move on!

This is what I have so far! A LOT of letters left to do, so I’ll just have to see how I get on. I am currently working on ‘H’ for Heptonstall. I’ve also started two Heptonstall paintings this week. When the valley was full of fog last week, I walked up the hill and out of it to blue skies up there!

I think that’s quite enough to be going on with. Well done if you’ve read all the way to the end. I really should do this little and often, rather than a quartely essay…

Thank you everyone for your support this year. I genuinely don’t mean just the buying of things, but coming to exhibitions, the studio or events. Commenting and sharing on social media. Emails. Whether you’re enjoying an original, a print, a card or a Jpeg – the fact that you’re enjoying it means the world to me!

For Christmas this year my Dad bought me a beautiful book of Eric Ravillious Wood Engravings…

Dad and I are both huge Ravillious fans, but the book of little engravings were a revelation. Above are my favourite three: I love the tiny, styalised perfection of them! I’ve long wanted to get back to some kind of proper, formal print making. As a textile deigner I did all sorts of silk screen and block printing at college – I loved it all. But once you set up on your own, print making can be quite a tricky thing to access, so I’ve let it all lie.

Wood engraving, as opposed to wood block printing, is the engraving of the short, end-grain of hard wood blocks with small chisels (not scooping tools, like with lino). It’s hard – in every way. But I find the restriction of scale very appealing. Since I was small, producing little watercolours on the backs of old tickets, and filling little perfume sample bottles with beads for dolls house cupboards, working in minature has always appealed!

I digress… So – in May I went away for 4 days to learn. Cherryburn is a small National Trust owned property near Prudhoe. It is the birth place ot Sir Thomas Bewick – an english artist and naturalist. And the father of wood engraving. The course was held there – in the long room, surrounded by Bewicks wood blocks in glass cases.

There were 10 on the course. All lovely people. Some very talented engravers; lecturers; professional illustrators. I was the dunce at the bottom of the class with absolutely no experience of wood engraving. It was nice in a way, to go with no pre-concieved ideas or expectations. I didn’t even know how to hold my tools! The course was led by Chris Daunt – an excellent, encouraging, and calm teacher, and creator of beautiful engravings.

We were sent down to the river to draw. Cherryburn is on the Tyne – it’s an incredibly beautiful bit of the country.

Wood engraving is daunting! Not least because the blocks are expensive (they are such beautiful things in themselves) and any mark you make cannot be undone. But the only way to learn is to do it. A peculiar thing happens to time when you start wood engraving. You begin, and when you next look up, hours have passed. There were 10 of us in that room, sat completely absorbed in our tiny wooden blocks, the only sound coming from Bewicks Grand father clock in the corner.

My first ever wood engraving!

I learned so much! And there were definitely marks I made at the beginning that I wouldn’t have made by the end. But all in all, I was rather proud of my first attempt and gave the print to my Dad for Father’s Day.

It will take YEARS – possibly a life a time – to get good at this. So I’m at the very beginning of a journey. I loved it though, and came away desperate to do more.

After the course I had ‘Whispering Ruins’ to complete for Chantry House Gallery, so it’s not really until this week of unplanned isolation that I’ve been able to carry on.

In April 2023 I will be exhibiting with Heart Gallery again. The exhibition is to be called ‘Home’. It will be my first exhibition at home since 2018. One of many (overly ambitious) ideas is to produce a Hebden Bridge A – Z in tiny wood engravings. I plan to only use small practice blocks so that I can learn and ruin them as I go. And I figure that over the course of 26 letters, I will learn and improve. Whilst at home with covid this week (and not in the South of France with my husband, and without children as I should have been!) I’ve started my tiny but ambitious project.

Stuck at home I’ve just been hand burnishing my prints, with varying results. But I did find this beautiful old book press which I’m planning to get set up to print my blocks.

So this is the beginning of something new and completely different. But just to prove that I have no intention of painting any less, I also completed this yesterday:

My new exhibition ‘Whispering Ruins’ is opening this coming Saturday, June 18th 2022 at Chantry House Gallery in Ripley. I’ve painted 10 new pieces, all inspired by North Yorkshire abbeys.

I took these two lovely girls (my daughter and her friend) to York for the day in May. I sat and drew in the Museum Gardens while they explored the shops, and then we met up for cake! Not bad for a day technically ‘at work’ was it?

I think this (above) might be my favourite of the new paintings. They were cutting the grass when I was drawing, so for me this is full of the smell of freshly cut grass and spring. The cake was good too…

This one – ‘Easby to Richmond’ – is the first painting I started in the new set. But it had a long rest in the middle when it learned to behave. That happens with some paintings and I don’t know why. The York one almost painted itself and took a week. This one took from October to May!

These are two I completed after a half term jaunt to Staithes. We left the Calder Valley as it was flooding and fled to the East coast where it was fiercely cold, but the skies were blue!

I wanted to call this one ‘Rievaulx Abbey is closed on Wednesdays’ but I was overruled. I think it would have been valid; had the winter opening hours not caught me out I would have gone in (eaten cake) and drawn the trees framed through the arches. As it was I had to find a different viewpoint. I like this: it’s from the lane that runs alongside the river. With imagination, artistic licence and squishing, you can have Rievaulx Abbey and the Tuscan temple from Rievaulx Terrace in the same viewpoint. The tiles (and I do so love tiles) are taken from tiles in the little museum at Rievaulx (I drew them when I last went).

So now all the work has been proofed for prints, and is at the framers being made ready. The exhibition opens on Saturday 18th June, at 10am. It will be up until August 28th. Details and prices of all the paintings are on the Chantry House Gallery website.

I’ve not posted for ages! It’s not good enough – I’m sorry. I’ve been working, just not blogging, and now I’ve an exhibition coming up. It opens on Saturday June 18th!

Back in the Autumn I escaped in Daphne (Daphne is my yellow Fiat 500. It’s impossible not to be happy when driving her) for a couple of drawing days in North Yorkshire. My friend Emma, owner of Chantry House Gallery suggested ages ago (in the first lock down I think) that she’d love me to have an exhibition of North Yorkshire Abbeys. So I had a route and a plan and an abbeys wish list…

I’ve never been to Byland Abbey before. It’s an incredible place! The day was rather grey, but the autumn colours spectacular – in their last throws before the November gales took the leaves. It’s a very silent place – very still. I love tiles and Byland has the most beautiful, and most complete, tiled floors I think.

I’m painting two pictures of Byland. This one is finished. The tiles merging into the autumn colours inspired by the mosaics inside.

This one is well under way. If I’m honest, I’m saving the tile designs in the bottom section for a treat, when something else is proving tricky. They will be a joy to do.

After Byland I drove to Rievaulx, then the next day to Jervaulx – again, somewhere I’ve never been. It’s beautifully wild and overgrown. Unkempt in a romantic way; I can see why people love it. I went early in the morning so I had the early morning light. It was very cold so i couldn’t draw for long before my fingers went numb, but I had the place to myself:

From Jervaulx to Fountains Abbey. One is nearly finished. One just in the early stages…

So that kept me busy up until February when the weather was fit for venturing out again. We escaped Hebden Bridge as the roads were flooding at February half term, and went to Staithes. There’s nothing like sea air to blow the cobwebs away, even if our rented cottage had run out of heating oil, so we spent our first evening huddled around a fan heater, and we slept in hats and jumpers.

I did speedy drawing in high winds and, at one point, standing in the sea! I’ve had a picture in my head for ages, and needed to work out the composition.

And then this! The Abbey was actually closed to the public in the morning because the winds were so strong. Again – speedy drawing in freezing wind!

Hattie and I are off to York on Monday. Me to draw, and her to meander. It’s a teacher training day and she loves York (as do I!) so we might allow ourselves afternoon tea in Bettys if the drawings go well.

One last thing. This exhibition needs a title! North Yorkshire Abbeys sounds very formal. I wondered about Silent Ruins – but maybe that sounds melancholy. Something that encompasses stillness, sometimes wildness, and the vastness of the decaying archticture. If you have any ideas, please let me know!