Technical issues held up the laser cutting of my last lantern design today so I had  whole day of painting. Something I haven’t had for weeks and weeks! I’m well on track for the Saltaire Arts Trail and have a big pile of prints all gilded and wrapped.

I am painting a large piece at the moment. It takes up the whole desk and this is just one end of it. It’s a commission for some nice (and very patient) people near Midgely.

I painted while listening to After Henry from the Radio 4 archive. It’s felt like quite a decadent day!

I’m about to take this new painting to the framers, ready for The Saltaire Arts Trail. It’s a bit smaller than usual. I’ve been experimenting with text!

Only two seeks to go! I’ve also just finished gilding the range of prints I’m exhibiting there. I’m getting a few framed up this time.

I am hoping to cut the last of the lantern designs on Monday. Then they will be packaged up ready to sell for the first time in Saltaire. I can’t wait to be able to post some photos of all of them finished.

I’m very excited about this years Saltaire Arts trail. I’m exhibiting at 19 Titus Street with the photographer Martin Priestley. It is just over a month away, over the first May bank holiday weekend:

I’m going to be allowed out – CHILD FREE! – for some of it to help with the exhibition. I’ve been preparing a range of prints to show and hopefully two original pieces. Having found a man that can (at last) I am pressing ahead with my little lanterns and am very hopeful to have them available for the first time that weekend. Here’s the latest progress:

The laser can cut so fine that there are bunting flags hanging from a hairs breadth of paper!

 

The lanterns keep hitting technical difficulties, so I’ve been making the use of the warmer weather to work on some new things. The front of Bridge Lanes faces the main road and is in the shade. But look at the back! It’s bathed in sunlight almost all day.

My friend took the twins to the park for a couple of hours on a sunny afternoon last week so I went out drawing. This is going to be a big painting. As big as my desk will allow!

I have been doing other things, but this is the project that’s been keeping me awake in the early hours of the morning. The twins have been sleeping fine! I now have three lanterns that I want to develop:

The first is Albert Street in Hebden Bridge. The final design has bunting in the window of Ribbon Circus.

The second is Old Bridge Gate, which I’ve painted several times because I love the house that’s covered in virginia creeper.

And the third is autumn trees strung with fairy lights. That’s the one I finished last night after sitting with different sizes of nails making the different sized holes!

Hannah from Radiance Lighting in Hebden Bridge is coming over tomorrow to blow raspberries at the twins, and then talk production once we’ve packed them off to bed!

Robin, who should be asleep, is shuffling around under the desk. He keeps turning off the computer. But when the twins have slept these past couple of weeks, this is what I have been playing with:

I have a second scene painted and intend to play with cutting it over Christmas. But this is the colour prototype of the first design. There’s a whiskey glass with a tea light inside. Now I just need to find a man who can make it for me!

This one is of Albert Street in Hebden Bridge, with the old Zion chapel behind. The second I will post soon. I have begun a third, which will be of trees strung with lights. This is making these dark evenings less gloomy!

I’m so enjoying the colours of the trees the last few weeks. They’re incredible! Though I know a gusty weekend will strip the trees bare and leave the landscape monochrome til spring. I’ve been taking the new paintings out to capture the colours. I was sat by the river yesterday with some hot chocolate, some pencils, and no children!

Also, with the help of my lovely friend Hannah Nunn at Radiance, I’ve been working on a new idea. The one on the left is a prototype, the one the right is a Birthday card. The finished ones will be full colour, like my paintings, but lanterns, cut so the light twinkles out of the windows and doors.

Also, after patiently waiting for about a year now The Harrison Lord Gallery will be restocking my prints, just as soon as I can muster them a collection. Tomorrow is saved entirely for stitching prints for Steven Lord!

With a date in mind – all be it a long way off – I have started some new work while the sun is shining and the leaves are turning.

I’ve started two of the views from the other side of the valley, down accross Market street with, what Hattie and I call, the Madeline houses (like the houses in the children’s book) and the stepped terrace up Heptonstall road. (more…)

I know this has taken me a long time because on the first of the sketching trips to Whitby Hattie was potty training (August Bank holiday weekend with the portable potty. It was very stressful) and she started Reception last week! Anyway – here it is…

This is a commission for a lovely person who just loves Whitby.

Phil and Sue at The Calder Gallery have been making me cups of tea and cuddling my twins lots over the last 9 months and as I’m gradually returning to work we’ve been discussing a solo exhibition. September 2012 gives me a nice long time! But I must start now.

Though there’s not been much painting recently, there has been lots of sketch book work .

I have the remains of a huge mill chimney in my back garden and it has been full of nesting birds this summer.

I feel a bit of a bird theme coming on – for two paintings at least.