Snapshots

I’ve got my groove back and have been enjoying painting more local snapshots.  I have lots more of these planned, so follow me on Instagram to make sure you don’t miss any! These are all all original pieces of art in ink and watercolour, and the size is 3.5 x 4.25 inches (old Polaroid size).  They’re currently priced at £20 (plus postage) each, and are available via Instagram.  I’ll start adding them to my Etsy shop in the new year, but in the meantime send me a DM on Instagram if you’d like to snap one up.

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Just A Card – Indie Week. Day 3

 

The prompt for day three of #indieweek is ‘your home and community’ – which gives me the perfect excuse to trot out one of my favourite quotes (by the wonderful Ben Aaronovitch – if you’re not familiar with his work then grab Rivers of London and get reading).

If you’re a native-born Londoner..then the strongest bit of your manor is where you grew up.  There’s a particular kind of safety that comes from being on the streets where you went to school, had your first snog, or drink, or threw up your first chicken vindaloo.

It’s true, and one’s manor doesn’t just confer a sense of security but also one of community.  I live at a bit of a crossroads: on the north/south boundary between Brent and Westminster and, looking east/west, I’m slap bang betwixt Queens Park and Kensal Rise.  I went to school in Kilburn, and (for various reasons) Maida Vale has also become part of my regular stomping ground over the years.  My manor is wide and varied; it ranges from the polished and ludicrously posh, to the slightly grubby and still-furiously-resisting-gentrification. I love all of it: the community spirit of the people who walk their dogs in the parks, the friendliness of local shopkeepers, the quirky habits of certain local residents (I’m naming no names), and the fantastically rich local history.  It’s an amazing place to live, and I think that living here has influenced me and my work no end.

 

 

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Sunday Sketchblog #170

Happy new year to you all!

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Sunday Sketchblog #167

A special sketchblog post today.  This is a painting I gave to my friends Ginge and Ellie this weekend in celebration of their birthdays (turning a respective 50 and 40).  Ginge is a friend who shares my appreciation of street art and often sends me photos of the interesting pieces he spots.

Happy birthday you two!

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Sunday Sketchblog #166

Buckle up, it’s my holiday diary!  We took a rare winter holiday and explored parts of Yorkshire, which was delightful.  I hope you enjoy my ramblings.

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Sunday Sketchblog #161

Today we arrived back in London after our annual jaunt to Scotland. Here are the postcards I painted in Orkney, plus one special one from Yorkshire.

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Sunday Sketchblog #158 (part 2)

Once upon a time (three years ago, if you want me to be precise) I started trying to learn Italian.  Again.  I had a plan, I’d paint myself a vocabulary guide, thus neatly killing due ucelli with one stone.  Alas the best laid plans of topi e uomini and all that!

I have returned to Italian once more this year, and this time I’m using DuoLingo and it’s going great.  I’m 109 days in and really do feel like I’m retaining the knowledge.  I did, however, add some more paintings to my vocabulary book when I first started using DuoLingo and thought I might as well pop them on here.  I have vague ideas of illustrating some of the odder sentences that the app comes up with (“the penguin eats fruit” – no, no it does not!), because actually I think there’s probably a pretty funny story behind things like “the watch is in the wine” (it had to have been a hell of a party eh?).

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Roses are red…

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I love it here!

Commissions are always fun, and they’re especially interesting when they take me out of my comfort zone.  At the end of January a friend asked me if I could do an art nouveau style poster of her friend.  She found one she liked the look of and sent me that together with a photo of her friend, and said she wanted her ‘wreathed in bubbles’ and, if at all possible, for the phrase ‘I love it here!’ to be on there somewhere as that’s all her friend had said for her entire birthday weekend in Amsterdam.

Here’s how it went.

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Isle of Harris gin

I’ve been wanting to try this for quite some time, and it was worth the wait. It’s quite the most unusual gin I’ve ever tasted. The flavour is clean but complex: fresh, but with a distinct taste that is slightly… stony. It makes me think of pebbly shores. The mouth-feel is what’s so unique about this gin: it leaves a very soft, rounded, viscous sensation on the tongue. Most peculiar, but very lovely!

My tasting notes for Isle of Harris gin.  I’d been dying to try it for some time and it really was worth the wait!  In addition the bottle is simply stunning – I couldn’t stop taking photos of it, and then I decided to paint it.  Both paintings turned out beautifully, I’m really pleased with them.

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