See the river flowIn a long unbroken lineOn the field of snow.– Nozawa Boncho I had been thinking about making a zine about winter, but in the end I made a simple folded book instead. Partly because I had enjoyed…
New Year Manifesto
Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you? – Elizabeth Gilbert | Big Magic This year, I want to commit fully to my art. I will invest time, energy and love into creating…
Lockdown 2.0
Another lockdown, another book! This tiny book is the same as the one I made for 40 Rabbits. Made from vintage French school book pages, homemade gesso and covered with a failed painting. I set myself the boundaries of drawing…
Faraway Nearby
Finally, it’s done! I talked a couple of posts back about the retreat/workshop called Faraway Nearby. Honestly, when I set out at the end of August to gather together all the threads, moving parts and random bits and bobs I…
Expired slide film
Over the summer I found an expired roll (2006) of Fuji Velvia slide film in the freezer. Perhaps I should defrost it more often? Anyway, I loaded it into my Nikon FE and although I barely went out all summer,…
Deep work
I’ve not been spending much time making art these days. I miss it, but I’m no good at multi-tasking so I accept my limitations and instead I’ve thrown myself into a period of deep work, creating The Thing. The Concertina…
Lockdown Book
As I mentioned a couple of posts back, during lockdown I maintained a small sketchbook routine. This was the second book, made from off cuts of paper lying around the studio and cover with an old linocut.As with all the…
Curiosité
During lockdown I retreated back into my regular comforting, therapeutic small sketchbook routine. I actually completed 4 little books during that time, because making little books to process and express an experience is what I know best (and that doesn’t…
Le Miel
https://youtu.be/vg1_O5cF4mo ‘Le Miel’ is the most recent recycled old book/sketchbook I’ve completed for Old Book Revival on Instagram. Here’s a tour through the pages.I bought the book in a charity shop just after the end of confinement here in France….
Mountain
A simple folded book, made from one sheet of paper. Inspired by Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse, with handwritten text, watercolour drawing and gold ink monotype. I recently read this book, and despite living so close to the Pyrenees (which…
Avocado or tea?
“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein Ecoprinting. Yeah, although I didn’t love it I loved the dyebaths to soak the papers in. In the past I’ve dyed both cotton and paper with indigo and woad, and…
La mare au diable
On the May 27, 2019 I started drawing in La Mare au Diable (The Devil’s Pool) by George Sand I’d picked up a couple of days previously for 50 cents in the charity shop. The book may have been ugly…
Plant magic
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you” – Frank Lloyd Wright One of the best things about the Concertina Retreat was the swapping of ideas, the inspiration and encouragement we all gave and received….
Concertina retreat review
I’ve kept trying to say something relevant about the coronavirus, but the longer it goes on, the harder it gets to say anything worthwhile about it, or indeed anything that hasn’t been said many times before by others more knowledgeable…
Pyrenees on film
“Here will be echoes in the mountains” – Boris Pasternak Taken at the end of last year on film, with my favourite camera in all it’s light-leaking beauty in the village and high up in the Pyrenees. Yashica 35ME |…
Heal
“Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it’s one thing and one thing only: it’s doing what you have to do” – Cheryl Strayed I loved making my book ‘Gather’ for the Are You Book Enough…
Natural beauty
“If you truly love Nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Vincent Van Gogh A couple of weeks ago we had some more torrential rain. The river yet again broke free of it’s banks, flooding the orchards and bringing all…
Colour palettes
“The colour blue – that is my colour – and the colour blue means you have left the drabness of day-to-day reality to be transported into – not a world of fantasy, it’s not a world of fantasy – but…
Marseille
“Architecture is the learned game, correct and magnificent, of forms assembled in the light” – Le Corbusier Just before Christmas I took a fleeting trip to Marseille for a couple of days. In the past, whenever I’ve been one of…
Gather
In November of 2019 I joined a community on Instagram – Are You Book Enough. Every month they have a theme for book artists, and we share the ideation, creation and the progress of the book. At the end of…
Beginning film making
One of the challenges I set myself for 2019 was to start to learn how to use film making more to share my process and how I create an art-filled life that works for me. This work I made for…
Art retreat reflections
“Life is ‘trying things to see if they work.’ ” — Ray Bradbury A few weeks ago I went on a three day art retreat, and I absolutely loved it. I had dithered to and fro about spending the money…
Costa Brava underwater on film
“The sea; I didn’t lose myself in it; I found myself in it.” — Albert Camus Following on from my recent Spain film photos, these were taken while snorkelling along several different coves of the Costa Brava. It absolutely is…
Costa Brava on 35mm film
“That which interests me above all else is the calligraphy of a tree or the tiles of a roof, and I mean leaf by leaf, branch by branch, blade by blade of grass.” — Joan Miro All of these pictures…
Cyanotypes by the lake
“A certain blue enters your soul” – Henri Matisse Over the summer I’ve fallen in love with the colours at the lake. The blue of the water and the sky are sublime. I’ve never been much of a yellow kind…
Underwater 35mm film
“Water is the driving force of all nature.” — Leonardo da Vinci A roll of film had been in my underwater camera since before I had cancer, so maybe even 3 years old? Finally, over this late spring and early…
Love what is mortal
To live in this worldyou must be ableto do three things:to love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go. In Blackwater WoodsMary Oliver…
Mallorca on film
Mallorca Sept-Oct 2018. “love the earth and the sun and the animals” –Walt Whitman Like I mentioned in this post, we didn’t really wander very far from the finca. Why would we? These red hills, gnarled olive trees, clanging sheep…
The minotaur and me
“I know they accuse me of arrogance, perhaps also of misanthropy, perhaps madness too.” The Minotaur and me. It all began in 2001 when I was an art student with an interest in all things to do with fairytale and…
Red Earth
There’s an awful lot of backstory here when all I really want to talk about is how I came to discover making my own paint from red earth. But first, let me set the scene and I’ll get round to…
Taking advantage
Late summer days, and I spend a lot of time out in nature. It’s my favourite time of year; the temperatures are still high but that heat feels lovely on the skin and in the air. The light is brushed golden, the…
Raw
This post carries on from last one I wrote and a digs a little deeper into this post on Instagram. Cancer has changed my life, literally at a cellular level, and I can’t extrapolate my creative future without including it….
Forest fire
Like everyone else I’m a complex, kaleidoscopic creature, and a big part of that is my battle with cancer. I’m in remission, finished with surgeries, chemo, radiotherapy and injections. When asked casually “how are you feeling?” I say I’m doing…
Come and go
On the surface, it may seem that I’m having a dry spell. It’s true that lately I’ve not been producing work that I want to show. But there’s been quite a bit of busy stuff going on down below in…
Madrid on film
I went to Madrid last month with Milla. I had always imagined when I finished up my cancer treatment, had my last Herceptin injection and was told I was in remission, that I would want to throw a party. Or…
Cyanotypes by the river
There are two aspects I love most about art. First is the process, more so than the finished work. I lose myself in exploring, experimenting, trying, failing and succeeding. You probably know this already. I’m indeed an artistic Jill-of-all-trades so…
