The Tale of the Hare and the Unreferenced Source Materials

When I'm working on an assignment for college I always end up with a collection of stuff that doesn't get used - little sketches, lino and gelli-plate prints that didn't quite work, collected ephemera, scraps of paper and fabric too nice to throw away - and sometimes this includes short phrases and sentences that come to me while I'm working.

Small hare collage

When I finished one project last year, on the theme of the Hare, I put all this stuff to one side with the idea of one day using it all to make a book and this has now become the first project I'm working on in my little shed.

I've been aiming at completing a double page spread each day, spending a couple of hours each afternoon - when it's nice and warm in the shed - to experiment with page layouts and get everything glued in place to be left overnight to dry out.

Inside cover and title page

Pages 1 &2

Pages 3 & 4

The pages are all re-purposed packaging - those cardboard envelopes you get from mail order companies. I've saved a box full of them over the last few years. And they are designed in a concertina so that the pages can be displayed individually or all together. I'll add the covers at the end.

The Shed at the End of the Yard

With the dining room overwhelmed with art materials, last Summer I spent some time converting our little 7'x5' shed into a work space. There was a massive sort out, tidy out, give stuff away day followed by painting the walls white, adding flooring and carpet (thanks Mam), a table (thanks Lorna) and bookcases and shelving scrounged from all over the place. I bought two solar powered lights, a big clock and a wind-up radio, everything else was second-hand, re-purposed, given or found.

It took a day to carry all the books and art materials from their former home and arrange them in new spaces. Longer still to rearrange them all again, until finally I was happy and could begin making a mess.

It's a tiny space, too cold to work in Winter but now warmer days are here I work on secret projects, messy projects and things involving glue, while the cats snooze on the roof.

Life has slowed right down. I hadn't realised just how much I needed a break from life until everything stopped. So I draw and paint and stick and stitch, listening to the goldfinch singing in the tree across the lane and make the most of this gift of time, this Pause, to take deep breaths of cleaner air and quieter skies in the shed at the end of the yard.

So, um, this is my new blog space...

Day eleven of the UK lockdown and, like many other people, I'm getting around to doing stuff that keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the 'to do' list, like changing my online accounts to my married name. And setting up this new blog to reflect the changes in my artwork over the last couple of years. The Wild Wood is ...not gone exactly...I still visit and walk through the tangled roots and branches... but I'm on another adventure now, working towards (hopefully) a degree in Fine Art.

So here is where I'll be writing about what I'm doing, painting, drawing, creating. Right now I'm playing with digital media, painting tests pieces for a six foot square canvas that's currently locked in the studio at college waiting for us humans to emerge from the virus crisis, and making a fabric crow - just for the hell of it.

No images of this to share right now so here's a photo of Darwin snoozing in a suitcase :)