My passion for beautiful books come from my Dad. He read to me every night until I was about 14 I think – though I’m sure I kept quiet about it at school! Even when I’d finished being read to, I’d listen to my little sister’s stories. Her tastes were different; one of her favourites was ‘Minow on the Say’ – Phillipa Pearce. And the Little House books. I was more for Tolkein and Alan Garner. We both loved Moonfleet and Sherlock Holemes.

I love reading to my children, and Becky loves to read to hers. Hattie and I read all the Little House books. I cried when I read her Moonfleet, and completely lost my cool when I read ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’! The twins have begun their Harry Potter phase. Hattie has never grown out of hers….

What I started my Lost Houses project my Dad was in the middle of writing this wonderful book: Mr Blackwood’s Fabularium. He took time away from writing that to help me put together my Lost Houses Book. We had a wonderful time researching it together.

Now Dad’s book is out!

 

 

The structure is based on the Caterbury Tales, but instead it’s a group of travellers heading to the Great Exhibition in 1851, and sharing their tales to while away the time on their train journey.

Ever the little girl wanting a story, Dad recorded the tales for me and I’ve been listening to them in the studio. This is one of my favourites:

The Baliff’s Tale of the Jackdaws’ Wedding

It’s tale of a a jackdaw named Mr Cornelius, trying to keep up with the demands of the Lady Cornelia.

“In the meantime the latter had plenty of demands of her own. She must have a set of apostle spoons and a silver sugar caster; she simply had to have a Japanses fan; she insisted on a pair of brass nutcrackers, a soup ladle, a pearl-handled paper knife. As time went by, her demands became not only shinier, but heavier. Why she needed a paperweight – or a bust of Prince Albert or a Doulton Creamer – he never discovered, but it was clear that she would not take no for an answer.”

The book is illustrated by Talya Baldwin

Mr Blackwoods Fabularium is £8.99. Available from his website

It is also available to buy and download via Amazon

I’m preparing for Art in the Pen next weekend! I just finished this large painting of Bolton Abbey, and It’s coming with me…

“Downstream”

Inks, acrylic, gouache, pastel, coloured pencil, gold leaf and gold thread.

Image size: 116 x 55cm (painted image size)

£5495

For sale at Art in the Pen. Please email me for details.

And there’s also this little one of Staithes Beach:

“No Dogs on the Beach”

Inks, acrylic, gouache, coloured pencil, gold leaf and gold thread.

Image size: 36 x 26cm (painted image size)

£2950

“Peacock Moon”

Collage, inks, gouache, acrylics, gold leaf and gold thread.

Image size: 36 x 26cm (aprox painted image size)

£1900

For sale at Art in the Pen. Please email me for details.

I’m tidying up! Ready to open the doors on my little studio on Friday July 6th. Please come along and say hello. I have many new things to show you!

Lanterns, cards, note books and NEW Calendars! So new I don’t have them yet. But I have seen a proof, and I’ve been promised they’ll be here by opening time of Friday (they do look nice. I’m very pleased).

There will be framed  and unframed prints (this one above is ‘Friday Morning’, from my recent Craggs & Fells’ exhibition at Heart Gallery.  There will also be some new original pieces, like my birds eggs:

and this wreath of birds:

 

and this one of the boats at Staithes:

 

 

There will also be my annual plan-chest clear out! It’s a rich haul this year. Not only a great many printers proofs, but also drawings and little paintings. Some interesting things that will only be available from Open Studios.

 

 

So please pop by! All the detail you need to find me are here, on the Hebden Bridge Open Studios website. I am right in the centre of town, at venue 65. There are many, many talented artists taking part this year. Make a day, or even a weekend of it (and my studio is in a nice shady courtyard, for anyone trying to escape the heat). My studio, and most of the others, will be open Friday 6th – Sunday 8th July; 11am til 5pm.

Such a lovely evening last Thursday, for the preview of Craggs & Fells at Heart Gallery. Sunshine was promised, but never materialised. Which makes it all the more amazing that this lovely and determined lady pitched up at lunchtime to bag her place at the front of the queue.

The Heart Gallery Dream Team were ready with the warm welcome and the Prosecco…. Ready for action Mandy and Bart? Others seemed to be a little camera shy on Thursday!

Cold outside. Warm and colourful inside.

I have to introduce you to my own dream team: My Studio Fairy Nancyann (who never likes having her photo taken) is holding my little boy. And this is Rob from Knight Graphics who does all my lovely Giclee prints, and Vince from Abacus, my brilliant framers. I’ve been very demanding these last few weeks. I know they all know how much I appreciate what they do.

And then the Fell Runners came. Turns out they scrub up quite well too. I usually only see this lot in mud spattered running gear!

The exhibition will be at the gallery until July. Details of all the paintings are here.

So, this is what we’re hanging tomorrow, ready for Thursday’s preview at Heart Gallery: I hope you like them…

All my pictures are done on watercolour paper in a combination of inks, acrylics, gouache, watercolours, gold thread, 23 carat gold leaf, coloured pencil and sometimes some pastel too, for good measure.  Really I like to use beautiful colours, in whatever pot, tube, bottle or stick they happen to come in!

 

Break in the Clouds
Framed Size:106 x 87cm  –  £ SOLD

The Piece Hall
Framed Size:106 x 87cm  –  £ SOLD

Late Summer
Framed Size:87 x 106cm  –  £ SOLD

Mr Fox
Framed Size:72 x 103.5 cm  –  £ SOLD

Friday Morning
Framed Size: 147.5 x 87.5cm  –  £ SOLD

Races at Fountains Abbey
Framed Size:760 x 50 cm  –  £ SOLD

Lumb Bank
Framed Size:73.5 x 100 cm  –  £3700

Visiting Erica
Framed Size:147.5 x 87.5 cm  –  £ SOLD

Nest Building
Framed Size:44.5 x 46.5 cm  –  £ SOLD

Tea at Gibson Mill
Framed Size:85 x 85 cm  –  £ SOLD

9 Tree Studies
(individually framed)
Framed Size: 31.5 x 31.5 cm  –  £800 each

Little Stoodley
Framed Size:106 x 87 cm  –  £ SOLD

Princes Street Gardens
Framed Size: 76 x 47 cm  –  £ SOLD

Swooping & Diving
Framed Size:51 x 51 cm  –  £ SOLD

The preview is on Thursday April 26th, from 6 – 9pm.

Heart Gallery, The Arts Centre, 4a Market Street, Hebden Bridge  HX7 6AA

For queries, either contact the gallery
01422 845845  hello@heartgallery.co.uk
or me
gallery@katelycett.co.uk

The exhibition runs til July 1st

Everyone welcome!

 

It really is – only a week to go. Last night I had my first anxiety dream. Heart Gallery had put my work in the basement, 3 floors below, and the lights weren’t working. I’d forgotten to get changed. Someone gave me a baby to carry that was screaming and in need of a change. I had one a few years ago where, upon going to to the framers to collect my work, found that he’d mounted them all on black sugar-paper, like in GCSE Art…

Anyway – lighting, basement steps and screaming babies allowing, Craggs & Fells is a new exhibition of paintings inspired by running in the Calder Valley.

This one is called ‘Visiting Erica’.

Erica is a very noisy and territorial grouse on Shackleton Knoll. My friend Helen named her – Erica meaning ‘Heather’. It’s a particular running route with a steep climb to wonderful views. From the knoll you can see Pecket Well, Heptonstall and Stoodley Pike. That may even be Pendle Hill in the far, far distance. I’d like to think it was as a group of us once ran through the night from Pendle Hill to watch the sun rise at Stoodley Pike for my 40th birthday.

And this one is ‘Friday Morning’ – a regular Friday route when I skive from the studio if I’ve worked hard the night before.

This is along the Widdop road towards Slack. The two hares are my steadfast running companions Gloria (the white hare) and Gill (the purple one). We three ran our first Ultra on Saturday! 40 miles of the Calderdale Hike.

And here are ‘Mr Fox’, ‘Little Stoodley’ and ‘Lumb Bank’.

There are 12 paintings and 9 small tree studies.

The exhibition preview opens at 6pm on Thursday April 26th. Please come a long. It’s at the lovely Heart Gallery where there will be wine and lots of colour. Hopefully not a screaming baby, and hopefully I will have remembered to get dressed…

 

I’ve made something new! I like little things. I also love handmade books and origami; so this is all sorts of things I love…

These images were inspired by a camping trip in Brittany last year. I spent a lot of time looking up through the branches of trees and did some little watercolours on the beach with Hattie.

I began with 4, but kept on adding them as they were such fun to do.

Each folding book is made up of 8 giclée printed panels on heavy watercolour paper. The front cover has a gilded block signature, and a ribbon to tie it up in it’s matchbox style slide-opening box. Folded up it’s 12cm x 12cm. Opened right up is 108cm. They are available to buy now in the shop.

Display it on a mantelpiece, or keep it in its box. My Auntie Ann (I sent her the prototype for her recent significant birthday) described as ‘a little explosion of joy!’

 

A couple of Saturdays ago I started the weekend in a very black mood. A combination of another wet, cold weekend, without light in the valley, and probably some squabbling children. I took myself out of the house and found this little ‘Observers Book of Birds Eggs’ in an antiques shop. Those little range of books are so lovely; i remember them from when I was small. It gave me a little idea.

The nest is one I found in the courtyard last year; blown down from the ivy on the old mill chimney. It’s full of turquoise fibres and threads. I don’t know who it belonged to, but it was a bird with an eye for colour (The egg doesn’t belong with the nest. It was found separately. I just keep it in there).

So, with no particular end in mind, I started my little Birds Eggs project, to try and encourage in the Spring.

Cutting out the eggs from scraps of painted papers

and arranging them like eggs in specimen cases. Hattie asked why they were pointing the wrong way up (I said they always go that way up in books (but I don’t know why!))

Looking through the books I found that I had more interesting papers than there were colourful eggs, so we all sat round and made up birds names! I used colour charts and bird books for inspiration too. There are lots of real birds in there, but made up ones too.

An egg is all possibility. Who know what a Ringed Spiggot looks like? Or a Red Banthorp? Actually, a red Banthorp would be short and plump, with a black cap and a angry temper; he’s named after a particularly frightening teacher from primary school.

A Jellicoe is named after a teacher too. One with a penchant for pink shirts. Bemily is a little girl I know and Little Jayne is her Mum. They’ve moved away and I miss them.

I will get on with some proper work now. But that was fun…

The last week of the Christmas holiday was grim and grey, but the forecast for the last weekend looked suddenly bright and cold. We all bundled in the car to the East coast in search of some Whitby air to blow the Christmas cobwebs away. I always think that the last minute trips are the best kind. No expectation. No plans. Everything is a bonus.

I love winter light on the sea. That spectacular cloud is a hail storm heading in our direction…

After a night in the youth hostel (where the kids were thrilled because they ALL got a top bunk) we spent Sunday in Robin Hoods Bay.

I’ve painted a new little piece, called ‘Gulls’ I think:

I sat far too close to the edge of the cliff to take photos for this. I made everyone nervous, especially me.

This is going to the Inspired By Gallery at the North York Moors Visitors Centre in February, as part of their Dark Skies exhibition.

At this time of year the studio is busy with orders from customers and galleries. Which is lovely! I love to be busy. But yesterday I skived…

My last exhibition in my home town of Hebden Bridge was in Spring of 2015, and my next one will open at Heart Gallery on April 26th 2018. It’s called ‘Craggs & Fells‘ and is all to be beautiful, local pieces…

In a busy house where everyone likes to talk at once, I sometimes run just to be still. Through the bogs and Bracken, in the sunshine and the snow, I’ll play out on the hills. Within a few minutes a hill will turn from black to gold, and then disappear altogether behind an on-coming squall.

This one is the view on the way to Stoodley Pike, over Swillington Farm. I was running with friends last spring and saw this beautiful break in the clouds on an otherwise foggy wet evening.

This is the other large piece I’ve completed; of the stepping stones down at Hardcastle Craggs. There’s gold leaf on those stepping stones so they glint in the light.

Yesterday I was finishing with this one, which is a view from near Hell Hole Rocks down to Mytholm Steeps. It’s very small. Sometime I play with creating textures on watercolour papers first and see what the marks want to do. It’s a lovely, free way to work.

And lastly (I work on quite a few pieces at once as the layers of wet ink take so long to dry), here’s work in progress on a painting of the mill pond behind Gibson Mill.]

Christmas production will resume this afternoon, but it was nice to have a break and get a bit painty.