After an 8 week break due to a broken wrist, Christmas, the flu and the yearly launch of my coaching programme …I finally got back in the studio and got paint under my fingernails again! Starting where I left off before Christmas I warmed back up by returning to my concertina sketchbook and what I’ve been learning with the fabulous Karen Stamper.

You would not believe the fight I had to face against self doubt, my confidence was rock bottom - not unusual after a break from art making. Far from being relaxing, therapeutic and restorative, this was painful! Is it ok to admit that?!! I know that this is the experience of most artists after time away from the studio, in fact I asked my artist friends what they do to overcome such situations and I thought you might like to read their words of wisdom:

• I put paint on something without expectations of a finish and just push thru with baby steps
  
• I keep working in my sketchbook until I feel the mojo come back.
• I try to focus on experimenting and playing with materials. Try something new.
• I push through the uncomfortable feelings and frustrations and allow myself to make work that I’m not happy with, allowing myself to make ‘bad’ art leads to better art.
  
• I usually find sketching, mixing different colours and just clearing the studio can be enough to make a few steps in the right direction.
• Just starting again is the toughest part. Collage is a quick way to get things going - sometimes cutting up old work or magazines, glueing down shapes and colours. The element of not caring or dissatisfaction can in fact be helpful, use its destructive potential to lead to new avenues and direction. That and just showing up in the studio again and again to get those squeaky wheels turning.

This is a great example of why it is so so important to have people around you who do what you do and walk through the same challenges you face. Artists need other artists!

Since October I've been taking a bit of a break, following the completion of my MA degree. However, after a good rest, I felt it was important not to leave it too long before getting back into my studio and getting paint under my fingernails again! To make this super easy I signed up for Karen Stamper’s concertina sketchbook online workshop called ‘Free up your sketchbook’, something I've been wanting to do for ages. And I thought you'd like to see what fun I've been having. Click HERE to find out more about the course.

This was a great opportunity for me to pull out all the art materials I've gathered over the years, some of which I've never actually used before. Karen got us to work in a concertina sketchbook which I've never tried. I loved creating a flow from page to page as it took the pressure of any individual part of it and helped me just to play and experiment. We began with mark making with ink and whatever else we could find.

Next we added collage - pictures and lettering from magazines, pieces of collected paper and some exercises that showed us ways of making our own collage paper involving tissue and sandpaper. I fell in love with the immediacy and patterned precision that collaging provides.

Beyond this there were a range of helpful exercises and opportunities for experimentation, from fingerpainting, to reworking one of my paintings and back full circle to monochrome juicy marks.

Here's a little video of the completed first side of my sketchbook from the course.

I would highly recommend this course (see link at the top), it was just what I needed at the time and has provided some interesting ideas that I look forward to developing and pursuing in the New Year within my own practice.

On Tuesday I handed in my portfolio, sketchbook, final piece and summary essay for my first module: Critical Practice in Fine Art, at Cambridge School of Art. This was meant to be the product of 300 hours of research but I managed to tot up 510 hours (with 158 of those being work in the studio)!
I thought you’d like to take a little look at what I’ve produced. I’ll also seek to answer your questions of why I’m doing a Masters Degree at all, and whether it’s living up to expectations!

Read back through my previous 2 blogs (month 1 & month 2) to see the outline of what my course entails and what my project has been about. But basically I’ve been seeking to transfer what I do with paint as an artist into printmaking, aiming to produce prints with impact that feel alive.

The theme I’ve worked towards is ‘What Matters’ and is concerned with giving our attention to the things that matter in the midst of a busy life full of distraction and demands. I’ve looked to use vibrant pattern to symbolise busyness and detail, and expressive gesture to represent focus and attention to the moment.

To conclude my body of work I first created a triptych, each piece on 70x100cm paper and tissue, collaged screen print & lithography.

My final piece was A0 (84 × 119cm) - paper, drafting film and plastic, collaged screen print & lithography.

Here is the summary report of my project, for those of you who like all the details!

To finish I handed in a portfolio of my body of work, showing all that has led up to my concluding pieces. Here’s a little video to take you through it.

Seeing as this is my first module I feel rather clueless as to what type of grade and feedback I will receive. I know I’ve worked hard and I’ve handed in a lot. But whether it ticks the right boxes for the examiners still waits to be seen! I’ve not had a massive amount of feedback but think I’ve got the general feeling that they would say if I wasn’t heading in the right direction!

I have reached a stage in my fledgling art business and career where I feel, before I go any further, I want to go deeper. The entrepreneurial side of being an artist can overwhelm and I was finding the admin of the business was consuming the creating side, with me spending less and less time in my studio. Some areas of my career have snowballed, especially the live art side, and I felt I needed time to catch up a little, realising I was painting more in front of an audience, than I was in private where I could experiment and develop. I was hungry to learn and hungry to play and desperate to set some clearer boundaries to my life. I see this as a rest of my life thing and want to establish some good patterns of behaviour.
I had originally looked at doing an art degree but because I’ve done a teaching degree I wouldn’t receive any funding. I’d never considered an MA as I thought it would be too academic, although I didn’t officially know I had dyslexia back then, I knew I found it hard to read and write and hated that side of education, but after investigation I discovered that the course at Cambridge School of Art was practice based and that the leader thought my work of the appropriate standard, the government were ‘happy’ to fund a postgraduate degree and it actually would fit much better with family life.

I would like to receive good grades that reflect all the work I’ve put in this term BUT actually I already feel that this MA has ticked all the boxes for me and as long as I’m allowed to keep going for the full 2 years, then that’s what really matters.
I started the term with practically no experience of printmaking or collage and, although I’m just getting started, I have learnt and grown so much in these areas, and in a way that compliments and enhances my current art practice.
My past experience of art history had completely put me off any type of proper research but being forced to consider theories within the art world and artists relevant to my practice has expanded my mind and developed in me a new passion to learn.
I’ve established some boundaries to studio, research, business and family life that feel a lot healthier and much more fulfilling. To be honest I feel like I’ve finally burst out of the housewife/‘stay at home mum’ bubble I’ve uneasily inhabited for the past 18 years and I’m feeling more alive than I’ve felt in a long time!!
As an aside I’ve been diagnosed with dyslexia (discovered I share a super power with some seriously impressive individuals!) - which is providing me with support and technology and insight into myself that can only serve to enhance my life.


I’m happy to have reached the Christmas holidays, I’ve been working really hard and need a break. But I’m already looking forward to starting the next module and scheming of what things I can get my teeth into next!

Way back in October I took part in a doodling challenge on Instagram, I realised that I have a variety of footage from it that I've never shared in my blog, so I thought better late than never!!

This challenge was perfect for me in many ways.

1. It was in the middle of a season of admin, so it created a welcome excuse and nudge to be creative at least for 5 minutes every day.
2. It was using crayons, which to me felt unthreatening, something I could be playful and unprecious about.
3. Pat Butynski, the artist who set the challenge turned out to be part of my mentoring programme - a wonderfully inspiring, brave and provoking abstract artist who I'm now honoured to call a friend.
   
   

I say I have a variety of footage but I actually told myself at the start of doing this that I could be free to play without the pressure of ever having to show anyone what I produced! This was very releasing and meant I could explore to my hearts content.

Here's a little timelapse video of one of them:

So the challenge was to do a #30daycrayonworkout, basically playing with crayons in any way I chose every day for 30 days and posting it as part of a group who were all doing it too. Search #getyourcraycray_on to see the other 1500+ responses.

In December I shared a selection of my sketches at my Open Studio event and even sold a few. Then in January I had the opportunity of exhibiting 12 of them at City Church Cambridge – hoping to inspire some playful 5 minute creativity in others.

Part of my homework in my Created to Thrive mentoring group and study of the fab new book by Matt Tommey has been to consider what negativity and doubts I've got running through my head and holding me back. Things like worry of being seen as a fraud, of not making money from my art, of it being too late to reach my potential, a fear of what others think etc. This sketch book study was created to contradict and combat these lies.

So in this picture I'm showing myself for who I am without apology or fear. I'm enjoying what I enjoy, trusting this gives God pleasure and that it will make others happy too.

Last month I posted about the online workshop I'm currently taking part in - Nancy Hillis Studio Journey. Well the most recent exercises I've been doing have been based around colour mixing.

Choose 2 secondary colours and mix with white and black. I chose purple and orange which I have learnt make the fabulous colour RUSSET. I then create some studies in my sketch book by playing with the colours I'd mixed.

See my painting process build around each picture above and in the movie below.

Named after an artist called Zorn who painted with just red, yellow, black and white and all the combinations between them. I mixed yellow with red (2:1;1:1;1:2) red with black (same ratios) black with yellow (same ratios) then add white equally to all. Finish by adding in the 'missing' third colour (red in the black and yellow mix/ black in the red and yellow mix etc). Then I had some fun playing with the new colours I'd created. See timelapse below.