Northlight Open Studios and Art Cafe

Come along to Hebden Bridge this weekend for 'Northlight Open Studios and Art Cafe'. Around twenty artists and craftspeople will open their studios. I will be there with my paintings, reproduction prints and handmade lampshades. This year our gallery space has magically transformed into an 'Art Cafe' where you can enjoy homemade soup or cakes whilst feasting your eyes on the lovely artworks which adorn the walls. Hope to see you there.

Facebook Giveaway !!!

Time for a free prize draw everyone. Come along and join my 'House of Chintz' facebook page and get the chance to enter a draw to win your choice of one of my handmade lampshades (30cm diameter for lamp base or pendant). On December 10th the names of all people who 'like' my facebook page will be put in a hat and one lucky winner will be drawn to receive a lampshade and two runners up will receive archival prints. If you want to see my design range take a look in my etsy shop here.

Fresh Meat

Anyone been watching the new Channel 4 comedy show 'Fresh Meat'? I just had to watch it as I heard that as well as being pretty funny there were going to be some pretty lovely lampshades on it too!
Look out for 'Caravan of Love' in the kitchen and 'Red Suburban Dream' in the Hall.

Website Update

Have been radically updating my website this week. My different modes of creativite expression are finally consolidated in what I believe to be a cohesive set-up. There you will find not only my artwork but also my surface pattern design work including my handmade lampshades and other project ideas. All comments most welcome.

Calder Gallery June 2011

Its been a while since I posted here and this is one of the reasons why... many hours spent in the studio working on my latest exhibition for The Calder Gallery. I hadn't painted so intensively for a while as I'd been spending quite a lot of my time on design work so it was a challenge to get going to begin with, but ultimately very rewarding . It was also therapeutic as I recently suffered the loss of my dad so I was lucky to have a project to throw myself into, especially as it involved something which he had encouraged so much. - It was my dad who first gave me a love of both art and nature.

Several of the recent works have 'trees' either as a main focus (as with 'Spring Air, Midgley Moor' above) or as an enveloping presence through which to view or glimpse the beauty of the landscape.

'Amid Rocky Outcrops'

'Viewpoint Above The Crags'

'Open Land Above The Crags'

The Calder Gallery Exhibition runs until June 26th.

New Colour schemes, New work.

I have lots of ideas for brand new lampshades and they'll be coming along very soon. In the meantime I have just finished making up a set of shades using my existing designs in new colour schemes. This is Suburban Dream in red ( photographed in my studio last night). I'm in the process of loading them into my ETSY shop. Come and take a look.

I've been working really hard at 'compartmentalising' my work lately, a necessity with so many different things that I want to do. Since Christmas, besides lampshades I've been working on a couple of textile design projects so my painting has had to be set aside for a while. We've also been working at insulating the studio - a long and difficult process but one seemingly not only to lead to a more functional winter studio but also giving us all good confidence in the use of power tools ( believe me I had none previously) and perhaps some teamwork skills! Anyway, still quite a bit to do there, but after this week - half term break - I will be painting again. As well as The Calder Gallery in June I will be exhibiting later this year at Gallery Top , Rowsley, Chatsworth. Had a couple of days out with Charlie walking in Derbyshire for inspiration but must put paint to canvas soon. These photos show our 8 mile circular walk up Kinder Scout last week. It was forecast low cloud and poor visibility over the Peak District but we decided to go for it anyway - thank goodness.

New pictures on Etsy

Added to my etsy shop today - one original painting: Last Light, Porth Neigwl

Plus two new prints taken from recent works from my last exhibition in November -

Stormy Sky over Stoodley:

And Stoodley from Todmorden Edge: