DECEMBER 2014

A last blog for 2014 as I’ve been so busy getting ready for Christmas with our many family members and working on our house I haven’t had a chance to write it until now, Christmas Eve.
I did manage to complete the embroidery of some Hampshire sand dunes that inspired me earlier in the summer. It took several months to finish but now it’s ready and part of the set of three I’ve made to record the seasons in our new location here in the South. It hangs between the one I did of harvest hares and of tulips with the beautiful blue downland butterflies that are so numerous here.

Also featured in this blog are some pictures of our Christmas decorations all ready for a visit from two of our grandchildren. One of our friends makes amazing gingerbread houses for sale at this time of the year and our grandchildren absolutely loved theirs. Everyone else in the family wanted one too so I’ll have to place my orders for next year early – their maker says her kitchen’s transformed into a gingerbread housing estate throughout the whole of December before she decamps abroad to a skiing holiday to recover!

SEPTEMBER 2014

After rather a long interval I’m now able to contribute to my website once more. The builders have left at last and we’re settling into our newly refurbished house and attempting to tame the garden which went rampant during the five weeks we had to leave it to its own devices.

During this period we made the most of exploring more of the area and the photographs I’ve added show some of the places we visited. We saw ponies in the New Forest nibbling the wayside grasses against a backdrop of a cricket match, an archetypal English scene. At Farnham Park we strolled down an ancient tree-lined avenue and at Polesden Lacey we saw rings of delicate autumn crocus just coming into bloom around single specimen trees.

At Selsey Bill on the coast we visited the Lifeboat station and were threatened by an approaching storm which produced some amazing colours in the sky. At West Itchenor near Chichester we watched the sailing boats and at Pagham we spent a lovely quiet afternoon in a RSPB bird reserve where seagulls flew over marshy pools and sand dunes.

This last venue has proved the inspiration of a new wall hanging I’m making now the hanging that I began in the spring featuring tulips and forget-me-nots has finally been completed. I made the Tulips and Forget-me-Not hanging in silk using batik, silk painting techniques, appliqué and embroidery sewn onto a sponged cotton reverse backing.  It features little blue butterflies floating over the flowers, dangling on semi-invisible strings. The colours of the fronts and backs of the butterflies are taken from the Common Blue seen all over the chalky Hampshire South Downs.

During the time when the builders were transforming our house I heard the good news that two of my paintings had been selected for showing at a prestigious international exhibition in Mexico: SICArte 2014: A Show in Mexico from 1 August – 5 September. They can be seen online at www.greenchair-gallery.co.uk

MAY 2014

In between recruiting builders and selecting fittings and fixtures to renovate our house we’ve found time to explore Hampshire a little more. On one of the most beautiful days this spring we discovered Mottisfont.  This National Trust-owned country house created from a medieval priory has been a centre for the arts since 1934 when Maud and Gilbert Russell moved here.

Home to paintings by Edgar Degas, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and John Piper acquired by painter Derek Hill, Mottisfont also contains five large new gallery spaces where the work of more contemporary artists is displayed. There’s a changing programme of illustrations, photographs, sculpture and ceramics as well as installations by various artists in residence. A mosaic angel created by Boris Anrep in honour of Maud (reputed to be his lover), decorates a niche near the 13th century cellarium.

Mottisfont also houses the national collection of old roses chosen by Graham Stuart Thomas that flower in the walled garden. I took plenty of photographs of this part of the garden in spring when the irises were looking their best as I intend to use them as a basis of future paintings. Mottisfont is also home to an ancient spring – the original font in the name - that flows into a quiet contemplative pool leading to a stream garden winding down to a river.

This month I include some photographs of chalky Hampshire fields with the new crops just showing through making amazing geometric patterns which have also inspired me to begin a new series of landscape paintings. I hope to show some of my recent work next month but in 2 weeks a team of builders will descend for 6 weeks to completely transform our house. Ceilings and walls will be removed, new windows put in to make more light for my studio area and the place will be in utter chaos. If I can’t manage a June blog, I do hope to have comprehensive blog featuring all the places in Hampshire (including the coast!) I plan to visit ready by July.

APRIL 2014

Here we are at long last in beautiful Hampshire after many vicissitudes produced by the moving house process. The property we’ve just bought needs a great deal doing to it, not least having extra windows installed to let more light into my new studio. But we’re balancing the hard work of decorating with exploring the local area and last week we visited Winchester and marvelled at the amazing carved stonework in the ancient cathedral.

In addition we’ve been walking in the Ashford Hangers, hillside woodland beloved by the poet Edward Thomas. Watered by clear streams bubbling over the chalky stony ground, violets, celandines and primroses thrive on the stream banks. In the old days, wild watercress grew profusely in the fast-flowing and often flooded Hampshire rivers and I shall experiment with developing recipes using this locally grown plant once I can get my cooker installed and working properly again.

Meanwhile I’ve now completed the embroidered wall hanging I started last autumn of hares escaping over ploughed fields from the stubble of the wheat harvest and its now hanging in our new home. The embroidered hares are suspended on invisible threads so if you flick them they can swing as you move past. Already I’ve begun another landscape of the Hampshire fields in spring and another silk wall hanging celebrating the tulips and forget-me-nots I found growing in my new cottage garden. Also in the garden I found several lovely Auriculas growing in a gravel bed. These gave me the idea of creating an Auricula theatre staging a collection of Auriculas in pots. I shall begin to collect them to display on the rather dull shed we inherited with the new property which we plan to extend and cover in rambling roses and clematis.

JANUARY 2014

Happy New Year! I did think I could write that we’ve now moved into our new home but we’re still delayed by legal matters. However, we should be able to move by the end of this month and so we’re hoping the winter gales floods and blizzards won’t impede our journey south to beautiful Hampshire.

This year we spent Christmas with our family in a Hampshire hamlet during a terrible storm. Rain poured in through the flashings that adjoined the windows and there was a power cut for 24 hours. However we all gathered round a blazing log fire and read by candlelight until my son was ingenious with his generator and we soon had warmth and light in time for Christmas Day.

Now we’re back in Cheshire, getting ready to pack up and I’m using the extra time to get more of my art work framed. I’m also working on a very colourful still life and on the second of a series of twelve embroidered textile wall hangings inspired by the countryside. Although it will be a wrench to leave the Peak District I’m looking forward to exploring Hampshire which has the advantage of sea, the Downs and the New Forest.

The pictures below are of three landscape-inspired pastels I completed last month. I made them using rigid mounting board and created a textured background of thick Plaster of Paris mixed with acrylic paint using the pastels freely on top of this once this ground had dried thoroughly for several days. Working in this way with pastels is rather messy and requires old newspapers to be spread below which immediately get covered with fine pastel dust afterwards so if you want to try this method make sure your workroom is well ventilated! However it was a change from working on the specially prepared pastel papers that I usually use with soft pastels and I plan to develop this style further in the future.

Please note that my February 2014 Blog might be a little late as I don’t yet know how long it will take to get my computer links up and running in our new abode.