I have an insatiable sweet tooth, and custard is one of my favourite things, I could have it with sweet pies, crumbles, strudels, cake, etc or even just on its own. especially Ambrosia custard, you could almost drink it through a straw it is so good. Cold or hot I’m really not bothered just give me custard
I love blackcurrants and for the past 14 years or so I have had blackcurrant bushes in my garden where ever I have lived. Even here in Fleetwood where we have a yard, I still have a small patch of earth that has a blackcurrant bush in it. All my blackcurrant bushes actually come from the bushes used to make Ribena, as years ago they did a give away, if you sent them labels off their bottles they would send cuttings. So I did and they did, and each time i moved I took cuttings off those plants and took them with me.
Even my grandad has blackcurrant bushes in his garden which were cuttings of my plants, especially when we moved house the last time from having a garden and not being able to produce the same volume as my grandad said they were the best tasting blackcurrants he had tasted we wanted to make sure he had some.
Original A5 acrylic painting on black card
Blackcurrants are my favourite
I love the semi transparent nature of the jelly casting colour in the shadow
If I don’t draw and paint every day I don’t know when I will. I started trying to teach myself to draw and paint properly in 2011, but it was a side project to help fill the walls of my pottery studio. And over 2011 and 2012 I would fill quite a few sketchbooks, especially at the start of 2012, when we had another had our second child due, but my eldest was at preschool, so when we went out together I would take a sketchbook and practice and practice from life.
My youngest was born in the summer of 2012 and I decided to professionalize my teaching skills, I had been teaching ceramics and that was the main earner but I wanted to get better at teaching. So I applied for a teaching qualification and got into the program and despite the fact I was teaching art at a sixth form I rarely picked up a brush, pen or pencil.
In fact between caring for my young family, and doing teaching prep and assignments for my university course, I was working in placement four days a week, and on the fifth day, I was at University in classes. I forgot how much I enjoyed it over that year and didn’t really pick up on drawing much at all till I had finished my Master’s degree which was a completely different course.
first three days of acrylic painting in 2016
By this time it was 2016 and four years had escaped me, and I knew I was probably going to have to find work so ceramics was out of the way of finding the calming influence of the flow state, where you forget everything else apart from what is in your hands with a narrow focus and the world is blinkered without care.
As a teenager, my dream had been to be an artist and create spaceships for Lucas film and with my pottery, I was also looking at doing sgraffito through layers of slip on my pottery and loved drawing boats and bins, so threw myself into practising those days by day.
I quickly found my pace and I got up at 5 am every day so I would have some alone time without the children to paint. I also found a day job working in a school so then I was term time and school time so then I was around with my children and I did that until getting furloughed in early 2020 and then never went back after my furlough ended.
I also really enjoy drawing and painting every day it is the highlight, of my day. For me the drawing is the more challenging stage, laying down watercolour I can reach the flow state where you forget everything around you, and honestly it is so relaxing.
I honestly wish that all I had to do day by day was to paint, just relaxed not worry about everything that needs to be done from marketing to trying to sell all the work I am producing on a day-by-day basis. Eventually, I will find a way to be prolific and sell enough to remove the stress of selling.
Another reason I draw every day is because it helps me improve, I am always trying to push what I can draw, the quality of the marks that I make, and most importantly whether I focus on ceramics or painting it helps improve my fine motor skills which because I am very dyspraxic and clumsy by nature, and had Occupational Therapy as a teenager where I worked on my gross motor skills and learnt to finally catch by sitting on a chair and through a can of deodorant hundreds of times till I could throw it and catch it without landing on my head.
There was also a void without painting in my life and I don’t want that void back again. I always felt like I was missing something, which is why I am currently working on a secret project, make sure you are on the mailing list to be one of the first to here about the project when it gets launched soon!
Blackpool is a hive of activity, selling food to holiday makers along the seafront is a lucrative business. every space is taken up between food and B&Bs and even entertainment.
Original A4 watercolour painting with drawing in ink and posca markers.
It’s summer the weather at point of me sitting here typing is hot, and my face itches, my nose, my eyes and at times my skin. It drives me up the wall, I hate it, I’m not a fan of the warm weather. To make it manageable on days when hay fever is bad I take one so then I can get to work and not be bothered by the itchiness.
If like me you can’t cope buy this, frame it put it near your door as a reminder when you are leaving to take a cheeky antihistamine.
Painting still life is an accessible way to start learning how to paint, I tend towards packaging as it is something that comes and goes through the house, on swatches of different coloured fabrics to just add some interest to what the object is sat on.
There is a lot to consider on a packet from colours, to type and logos and so on. I’m not looking at painting with realism though, I just want it to be fast and fluid and describe a level of energy to my painting.
Nothing like a sweet treat
they are delicious
The box is bright and colourful
I want to get back to painting in acrylic too
If you are interested in purchasing please contact me
