Another visit to A&E in August, after being bucked off my rather 'fresh' horse, put a halt to my plans to increase my maximum open water crawl distance to 3km.
Fortunately it was only a dislocated shoulder this time, which, although intensely painful until it was put back into position, shouldn’t cause long term problems. I’ve spent the rest of the summer swimming a rather odd form of breast stroke, which largely used my right arm plus legs!
The beautiful fresh colours and delicacy of the early summer flowers once again became the subject of several large paintings, bluebells, Lakeland poppies, campion and dandelions grew up the page from the bottom to the top. We have used some of these paintings as the basis for designs for stationery and a new range of bone china we hope to have in time for Christmas speaking of which..
Christmas begins, well, pretty much as soon as the decorations for previous one come down. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but now that we supply quite a lot of shops in country houses, visitor centres and vineyards, as well as galleries and florists, we are constantly coming up with new stationery and gift ideas. It was just a couple of years ago when we set up a photo shoot in the nearby forestry, wrapped up in coats and hats, with fake snow on a swelteringly hot August day!
Behind the studio, the neighbours herd of bullocks graze between three fields, and frequently stand about two metres from my window, intrigued by what is going on in here. They are big and beautiful and I’ve been painting them. One of the paintings will be used as a Christmas card design this year.
The most exciting time of year is just about upon us, when the colours of the landscape and the skies, combined with erratic autumn weather, inspire the most dramatic paintings of the yearhopefully!