Newsletter from My Studio

February 2024

HELLO FEBRUARY! Hello Friends!

How are you? I hope this month finds you rested and ready to be in 2024. Where are you in the world? Is it winter where you are? Everyday, even along with the greys and browns we are finding beautiful pops of colour, whether in the orange rosehips, red holly berries or the robin chests. The blue skies and bluetits as well as the wonderfully wide range of evergreens also make us smile. On some stormy days though, we have kept ourselves inside to drink tea and read books.

During the past month…

• For a short period my online shop will be open with some winter/early spring prints. This includes a Scottish cottage, some winter botanicals, and a few other early spring favourites. I ship worldwide and these are printed with love in the UK.

• Something I’ve been dreaming of doing for several years but never felt like it was the right time…drawing my journals every week for a whole year!! I’ve made a good start, have drawn and posted 4 visual journaling spreads with video processes and would love to keep going for the next 11 months of 2024! If you haven’t seen them, here’s the link to each: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4.

• Every January, my studio gets a big sort out and tidy up. This year, I took out every single book, magazine, folder and material,… and changed the layout too. Also I hung up dried flowers to dry some more from the ceiling which I’ve been meaning to do for a few months. The studio is looking good now and I’m so grateful to have that space. I always look forward to working there during my very precious 4 mornings a week.

• Drawing zoom calls this month have been a highlight. The ones I took part in were run by fellow artists from all over the world, from Canada to The Netherlands, via the UK and USA. We drew cats with Charlotte Hamilton (Blue Shine Art), seasonal scenes with La Scarlatte (Creative Cocoon) and ducks with Emma Carpendale (The Creative Flock) and Beth Spencer (Introvert Club), another was with Sarah Dyer hosting a charity event for Palestine. These drawing sessions are great to get drawing in a loser way and I always love getting to know people on the calls, hearing about materials and other fun chats.

• My visits to Sheffield to an exhibition and a talk on the life and work of William Morris were incredible. I first went with my friend Rebecca and decided to go back a second time for the talk. I would love to share in the form of a little video my sketchbook pages from those days as well as footage of our walk round Sheffield and what I took away from it all. I’m still buzzing from these visits.

• For a few weeks now, I’ve been learning, researching and thinking lots about colour. Is my goal to keep to consistent palettes? Not sure yet. In any case, I’m finding it helpful to document my findings as I go along and I could share this in the form of a little video as well. This one may take a little extra time so if anyone has questions on the topic shoot them my way, it’s not too late and your questions can help steer the direction of the video.

• Agent Debbie Bibo (hosted by Orange Beak) gave a fantastic talk on being an agent. It was a perfect prompt to schedule in some focused work on picture book storyboards and more sequential sketches for February. So many ideas, so little time but a lot of hope.

January highlights

My little trip to Sheffield with Rebecca was definitely a highlight.

Some fun bits & bobs and sweet little things…

• Watching some of Sandi Hester’s YouTube channel. I love her approach to play. She’s also funny and made me laugh out loud several times. They are a real pick-me-up and a reminder to have fun. I got to see her work in Morningside Gallery, stunning!!

• Listening to Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter soundtracks on repeat.

• Eating toasties. With extra mature cheese. Ideally with some chutney on the side.

• Thoroughly enjoying the new socks and pjs I got for Christmas. So grateful.

• Spotting crocuses and snowdrops in the last few days.

• Also spotting squirrels jumping in the trees and geese flying over the house.

• We also took a wildly quick trip up to Edinburgh for a surprise ceilidh party. Mike had his kilt on. So handsome. And we managed to finish a 1000-piece Harry Potter jigsaw we’d been working on with Mike’s mum for months. It felt good.

• Revisiting old sketchbooks from last year and dreaming up a way to dive deeper into drawing Paris in winter, this time larger, maybe even with oils on canvas.

Remembering my trip - January in Paris

Hope you have a lovely month of February,

Helen xx