Mirrors removed

Portrait of my friend.

Today was a sad day, leaving my studio at Spode is a real wrench. I have had to gather up my belongings including paints, canvases, an easle. Even the mirrors on the walls and the nails that supported my paintings over the years I’ve been there.

How do you remove hexagonal mirrors that are glued to a wall? With a claw hammer and very carefully is the answer. Now some paintings are at a friends studio and others are here in my living room. Hopefully I will soon get sorted out.

Spode plants

In the restroom at Spode. Lots of plants adorned the old windowsills. I gave them all a bit of water as they were looking very dry. I didn’t pour a lot of water in them as I didn’t want to disturb someone else’s regime of watering. It’s lovely to see them surviving as the space is boiling hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, but still the plants survive.

Spode Open day

I’m going to go to Spode Open Day on Saturday. It’s part of being a studio member at the old Spode Factory in Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent. I might be selling small paintings, but it’s been so long since I’ve been there that I have really got out of going in. With the pandemic and then illness and then a recent bereavement it’s been hard to pluck up courage to go in. My mind just got stuck in park (if that’s the phrase) and its been hard to get out of that feeling, but I think I’m slowly making progress. Anyway the painting is called Green Man, it’s a favourite subject of mine. Something serene and mystical about this mythical character (maybe not this particular one though).

Open studios

Spode studios are having an open day this Saturday so I hope to be there to show off some of my newest ideas and paintings. It’s sometimes quite cold though so I will have to dress warmly. This horse painting has a pot for the potteries hidden in it. I’m not sure if I will stay in my studio or set up a little market stall so I can try and sell a few things. I will have to decide.

In happier times

I haven’t been to my studio for months , I’m keeping away from people as much as I can. That said, it was lovely to come across this photo. I was at tge studio at Spode. It must have been cold because I was wearing a hat. I don’t know where the jumper went to…..

It is clear I was happy in the photo, something had made me chuckle. Someday things will get better. Some of the paintings have been sold, but I can’t do craft fairs or exhibitions at the moment so I haven’t been replacing them. Maybe I will have a go again soon. I have got a course that I’m taking which starts in June. Hopefully that will get me going again.

Some favourites from 2018?

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Well I think it was 2018. Time gets mixed up in my brain. I enjoyed going to a life drawing group for a while then other things got in the way, the drawing of a dancer and a guitarist are from there. I had a go at using gold leaf on pictures, which is the picture of the crow or rook. The teacup with a willow pattern was a hat for our local panto. The owls was one of my first tiny paintings. The tree is one I drew while we were up in Yorkshire on the Keithley and Worth Valley railway. The houses ainting is based on a picture I had done in 1980. The photo of  me in the mirror is in my studio.

So that was the selection from 2018. I might do one for 2019.

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