do you mind if i knit

Winifred Nicholson's flower paintings, a good substitute for sunshine.

This was the splash of colour on my desk a few days ago!

At this time of year, when grey days are numerous, my brain needs colour, a substitute for sunshine.

This little Cyclamen plant was a gift, and when I look at it I think of Winifred Nicholson's paintings of flowers on windowsills.

That's something else I find good for combating the grimness of grey skies, slowly leafing through my book of Winifred Nicholson paintings.

"Luminosity, open space and quick movements characterise Winifred Nicholson's paintings. Flowers on windowsills are a favourite subject, not only for their intrinsic beauty, or even their personalities, but above all for their living, transluscent colour".

  Quoted from "Winifred Nicholson" by Christopher Andreae

I love Winifred Nicholson's flower paintings, because she perfectly captures that moment when you first look at flowers in a jug or jam jar, and you get a jolt at their beauty. They're perfectly calm, and perfectly beautiful, and it's a pure moment in a busy day.

I find art with a domestic theme powerful, and Winifred Nichoson's work had a mostly domestic feel to it. A painting of a bowl of flowers on a windowsill, affects me more than a painting expressing an artist's angst. It's not just a bowl of beauty, it can be more than that, a moment of clarity and realisation of our smallness, and how fleeting perfection is.

The painting above is one of my favourite, it sings with sunshine. Winifred Nicholson managed to capture a sunny feeling in her work without being sentimental.

You can see more of Winifred Nicholson's work here and here.

And you can read more about her, here.

I hope Winifred Nicholson's work gives you a bit of alternative sunshine, if that's what you're needing just now...................

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

 

 

Flowers of the hedgerow made by yours truly.

Hello............ my blank and lethargic blogging mind has suddenly become a chirpy, perked up blogging mind. That's why my blogging has been so erratic, I'm sorry about that.................. but when you think about it, it's bound to happen occasionally isn't it? Sometimes it's a struggle to keep blogging every week, plus working hard at all the other things I do, without feeling worn out.

But enough of that, here I am, with a little blog entry, saying hello, and showing you a teeny weeny bit of what I've been up to lately.

I'll be using these flowers, which aren't finished yet, in the jewellery I'm making.

I would loved to have worked them in porcelain (!) but sadly I don't have access to porcelain making facilities. I've had to make do with paper mache, which is very, very fiddly (I'm talking tiny, thinner than a bit of skinny string, strips of paper here).

These flowers are going to be painted with a minituarist's paint brush, applying tiny detail that a mouse would hopefully be proud of (well, that's the sort of tininess I aspire to, a mouse would probably think my work a bit slap-dash).

At the moment, things like these seed heads, collected on walks in Spain, are inspiring some of my jewellery.

There aren't many walks I go on where I don't pick up a fallen leaf, or moss covered twig that's been blown to the ground by the wind, a feather, or a dried empty seed head.

Thank you nature, for your lovely gifts.

Bologna Book Fair, the place all the publishers take their new books to sell, is happening soon, and I'm in a flurry of activity trying to get as much of the book I'm working on, finished in time to take it to the Fair. In the midst of all this, I had a very nice journalist called Tamzin Lewis, from The Newcastle Journal phoning me up to conduct an interview about "The Pig's Knickers" last week. Tamzin wrote a wonderful article, she writes beautifully. There's an on-line version you can see here.

Now I've got my blogging mojo back, I can say with confidence, see you next Tuesday, and have a fantastic weekend!

Vanessa xxx

A Necklace in Two Parts.

Hello! I'm thoroughly behind on all things bloggy, chiefly, saying hello to blog pals and visiting blogs. I'm so sorry about this, so sorry, something always has to give when things get stupendously busy.

But on to other things, like my jewellery making!

It's a new year, and things are evolving in every area of my work, from the books I illustrate, to my sculptures, and now there has been a progression in my jewellery making.

You may remember these brooches I made, which I sold before Christmas..........

Welllllll........ Fliss, from blog Joshy and Belle, you may find yourself going oooooooohhhhh wonderful! at some of the things she makes, the Debbie Bliss pattern for a fair isle top she's working on at the moment is amazing, the link to Fliss' blog is here. Fliss' writing is magical, and her new baby is very, very, sweet. I'm not sure how she manages to look after three young children, write a blog, run a home, have a job outside the home, and come up with wonderful ideas, but she does.

Fliss bought a holly and berries brooch from me, and then decided on the strength of the brooches I had made, to commission a necklace.

For someone to have so much faith in you, over such an unknown quantity, feels amazing, and a bit scary, incase it turns out to be not up to much.

Fliss told me about her influences, images she likes, things she collects, and she asked for a necklace in two parts. A basic necklace that could be worn during the day, and then a part that could be added to make it more of a statement piece for the evening.

So I came up with a necklace that could have a brooch pinned to it, and the brooch could also be worn on its own.

Fliss is like a muse, she feeds me ideas, and I act on them. Fliss has been imagining a jewellery range for me, which is rather exciting that she has so much faith in me. At the moment, I'm spending spare moments making the components for necklaces and brooches.

I've just been looking at the dog in the brooch above, and realised he needs a red collar! How annoying that I missed that.

I did, however, put in finishing touches like little red bells to cover the knots in the ends of the cord, which Fliss can shorten if she finds the cord too long, by cutting the ends shorter and tying new knots.

The details are important to me, like tending to the ends of cord or string. That expression "the devil's in the detail", I think it must be referring to the detail being devilishly difficult and trying of ones patience. For me, I find that "joy is in the detail", and is essential. If I had a mathmatical brain, maybe I could have been a watchmaker, I like sitting hunched up with my entire focus on a tiny thing.

Such a nuisance I didn't apply myself enough to realise the dog should have been given a red collar. Sloppy of me.

Well I must now apply myself to the making of a cup of tea, and the savouring of a little something sweet of taste. That'll be some chocolate then.

Just before I go, talking of tea, Helen Stephens, a hugely talented writer/illustrator of children's books, came by to say hello and draw my doggies yesterday. Helen has a website here. Her work is magical and funny and touching. Her partner, Gerry Turley, was at The Royal College of Art at the same time as me, and I love his work too, which you can see on his website here. Hugo very generously gave me one of Gerry's gorgeous prints for my Christmas present.

I like to share wonderful talent with you all, it's enriching, don't you think?

Now where's that cup of tea I've been going on about?

Cheerio!

Vanessa xxx

 P.S.  Something else to share with you, a rather wonderful giveaway from Lori, of superb blog Lori Times Five. If you read her magical blog post here, you will be inspired, and it will lead you to how to enter her giveaway, it's wonderful. The time for entering finishes tomorrow, Sunday 22nd.

 

The dog equivalent.

I'd just like to say a big thank you to Douglas, above, for allowing me to publish these photos of him looking a little undignified.

Douglas doesn't have vanity in his personality as far as I've noticed.

The chief concerns in his life are, firstly, food.

That should be in capitals.

FOOD.

And then after that, it's me, his Mummy. And maybe his Daddy too (just to appease Hugo's outrage at not being up there with me, on Douglas' list of priorities).

Douglas was lying on Hugo's lap, and Hugo had one leg raised up, resting his foot on the other leg, just to explain these photos, (they may be a bit baffling if you weren't there at the time the photos were taken).

Douglas reminds me a bit of myself in the mornings, though I don't think I sleep with my tongue sticking out.

Every morning I do look dog tired. I'm busy, busy, busy with this and that, and things I can't show you yet, and ideas and goodness me, it's all go.

But I'm glad of it. I'm very, very glad to be busy.

I'm also glad I'm a human, though I do sometimes wonder what it must be like to be a cosseted dog, owned by me. Lots of sleep, hundreds of cuddles, adored. Hard work.

Well, I am going to leave you with the human equivalent of a waggy tail.

A big smile!

Cheerio.

Vanessa xxx

 

 

2012.

Hello! Is it really 2012? Is it? Happy New Year!

I've been creeping around, feeling hibernational (which isn't a proper word, but I think you know what I mean). I can't get my act together at all. D'you feel the same? I'm sure I'm not alone.

Hugo and I spent a lovely five days in Spain with my parents over the Christmas period. It felt very short. We see Hugo's parents all the time, as we all live in the same town, but I only see my parents once, at most, twice, a year, and the rest of the time we make do with skype.

We had a really lovely time. And each morning we woke up to glorious sunshine. Sunshine is not guranteed where I live. Where I live, a day of sunshine is like winning the lottery.

Whilst we were with my parents, we went on a couple of walks into some dramatic countryside.

I love the countryside around where my parents live, it's so familiar to me, I've known it since my early childhood. Whenever I return, I feel totally at ease, like I'm going home.

All the orange trees were laden with fruit. Ripe, ready to be picked fruit. Beautiful.

Olive picking had been and gone, so the trees were largely bare, apart from a young olive tree we came across, which was covered in the most glorious multi-coloured fruits.

It was so beautiful, I almost felt protective of that little olive tree.

The olives look a little like beautiful beads, don't you think?

I think all these pictures speak for themselves really, don't you?

We returned from Spain for New Year, notably the celebrations of some dear friends heading off to live in New Zealand. The dress code for the meal wasn't bow tie and long dresses, it was "lifestyles of the rich and famous".

So I went as Lady Gaga in her meat dress. You can see how she looked here.

Don't ask me how I thought of doing this, I honestly don't know.

I did my best to copy Lady Gaga's outfit, unfortunately I couldn't find a straight haired platinum wig, I had to go for a curly 3 euro effort.

Doesn't that meat on my feet look realistic?!

To try and keep the outfit as authentic as possible, I didn't wear my glasses, so I spent the evening looking at a blurry world, and as a result, feeling not quite there.

Also, wearing photocopies of meat, stapled onto a bin liner, is not really the sort of costume you should sweat in, or sit down in, because both those things cause it to disintegrate fairly rapidly. Still, the costume seemed to be appreciated by everyone there, especially the hosts, who were the people I wanted to make the effort for.

Hugo went as a public school boy protestor, complete with false teeth.

I would have taken photos, but I felt a bit out of sorts because the costume was fragile and uncomfortably hot and sweaty, I couldn't see very well because of not wearing my glasses, and that seemed to affect my hearing (though the music was very loud), and to cap it all, I suddenly realised that the people at the party (quite a few who we didn't know, and were quite exceptionally drunk at the very start to the evening) might expect me to be a flamboyant, outrageous and entertaining person, (because of my costume), and I'm none of these things. So, I actually felt intimidated by my own costume, would you believe.

Hugo stayed on at the party till 4 in the morning, but I left earlier at 1 am, as I was not only tired, but tired of being a Lady Gaga imposter.

As I traipsed home unescorted, I did feel a bit uncomfortable having to walk through a group of drunken young lads who were a bit vocal towards me. To them I must have been just a piece of meat.

And on that note, I shall wish you all a happy start to a happy new year, and may 2012 be a fantastic year for you, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

Love Vanessa xxx