When we first moved in to our house, 6 months pregnant with twins and feeling a little green, It suddenly dawned on me what a huge project it was. It’s the kind of house where you strip the woodchip only to find that it’s the only thing holding plaster on the walls. You try to replace a carpet, but find that you need to replace the floor boards first. Oh! And mushrooms growing through the bathroom ceiling. That was a highlight… 6 years on we have done an awful lot. My studio has, up til now, been the spare room…

I’ve been playing these last couple of weeks. I shouldn’t have been – there are things that I should have been doing instead. But i wanted to work this idea through… I met with the retail manager up at The Bronte Parsonage in Haworth a few months ago and we talked about my producing some work inspired by the Bronte home, and by the novels. I had the seed of an idea which I started to work out in little paper maquettes. This is the Parsonage, Wuthering Heights and Wildfell Hall. I’d like to do Thornfield Hall too as Jane…

On Friday January 22nd, we launched the Lost Houses Exhibition at Bankfield Museum. I’d seen this photo some time ago, of the last formal function to be held at Castle Carr (the largest of the lost houses in the exhibition). It is a photo of Ronald Murgatroyd’s 21st Birthday party, taken in the early 1930s. So everyone was invited to dress up for the occasion. And oh my! Didn’t they make the effort? Over 200 people came, almost all of them in full evening dress! This is the Swing Cat’s Trio. They played 1930’s Jazz on fiddle, guitar and tea-chest…

I finished this painting today. The house was called Harrowins and it stood in Queensbury for about 80 years. No one knows exactly where it stood, or exactly when it was demolished. Only that no one, not even the golf club wanted it in the end!   This is the last one of  14 large paintings for my Lost Houses of the South Pennines  exhibition. The installation begins at Bankfield Museum, Halifax, on Tuesday. It opens to the public on Saturday and runs until April 9th. Please come! There’s also am opening party on the Friday (January 22nd). Please email…

Maybe it’s a bit soon to start talking about after Christmas, but I can’t think of much else at the moment. I’ve booked the Jazz trio, Bought the Champagne and I’ve been trying on vintage dresses! I’m planning something a bit different for the opening of this next exhibition, the exhibition being very different to anything I’ve done before: This is Castle Carr, Luddenden Dean – it’s the largest painting in the exhibition. I’ve looked at 10 houses in total. Someone let me borrow this photo. Its the last party to ever take place in the castle before it was…

It’s still November, It’s still November, It’s still November… I can’t be in denial after Tuesday though. We will be in December, which means Three Big Things!: 1) I have a children’s birthday party to organise (and though i try, I am rubbish at decorating cakes (though the thieving fingers would suggest that my icing isn’t bad!)). 2) Christmas is near, and I will be closing the web shop over the holidays. I will be taking orders, while stocks last, up until December 17th.   3) It’s nearing the deadline for everything to be complete for my Lost Houses of…

My twins start big school tomorrow. It’s going to be quite a change – the first time in nearly 9 years that I haven’t had a child at home. School days aren’t long, and the school isn’t far. But I  i’ll miss them. One of the many lovely things about having twins is the laughing. When you have someone just your size, just on your wave length; someone who thinks bottoms are just as funny as you do, you’re going to laugh a lot of the time. Squabble a lot of the time too mind. I will miss the clamor!…

It’s that time of year again when I have to tidy all the children’s toys and art work away, and pretend that I live in an immaculate house! I am opening up my house as a small gallery for the three days of Hebden Bridge Open Studios on July 3rd, 4th and 5th, from 11am til 5pm. I will be selling cards and lanterns (my new card range should be here in time) Framed and unframed prints (including all the new ones from the ‘Water and Light’ exhibition that recently finished at Heart Gallery). I’ll have extra things too, that…

Now that ‘Water & Light’ is almost finished at Heart Gallery, I have been getting on with my Lost Houses project. There’s a separate blog about this here. I’ll just post the paintings here. But the research and the stories in detail will be on the blog. So far I have New Cragg Hall, an Arts and Crafts manor house that stood in Cragg Vale for less than 20 years before it was destroyed by fire… And, more recently, Castle Carr. A grim brass castle in an isolated valley in Luddenden Dean… The castle is all but disappeared, but the…

Well I have to confess that Thursday evening stills feels a bit surreal!  With my best dress on i walked down to Heart Gallery to find a steadily growing queue outside.            We’d hung the exhibition the evening before, so i knew it all fitted in beautifully! Once the doors were opened , everyone was welcomed with a little bit of bubbly… I couldn’t get in to the picture room for the first hour! And by the time i did, almost everything was sold. It was wonderful, but i missed the chatting bit. I like the chatting bit! And…