Thursday, November 19, 2009

the Middle Lands.


Firstly, a thank you to those of you who left such generous comments on my previous post. What a treat it was!


Now, I've been away a little while, spending the last two weeks in't North, like.
It was a fortnight of firsts, up there in middle England.
The first frost of the season.
The first firework display (followed by many millions more).
The first flu of about a decade (and hopefully the last for the next decade...)
The first inclination felt in a while to learn a foreign language. Oui. Le sigh.






So, on the scent of work, I moseyed on up to the place where my Auntie Mary calls home. My Auntie is one of those clever people who knows lots of long words and amusing anecdotes and lives at a leisurely pace. 
She resides in the heart of the 'black country'- named for the coal mining (etc) of yore. Apparently it's imported from Poland these days. Oh well, I'm sure it does favours for the air quality...
The houses are visions from rural fairytales- cobbled bricks and smoking chimneys, squeezed between fields full of horses. In my head I can hear Forrest saying 'Orses', in his 'English' accent inadvisably based on Black Adder and Monty Python. 'Ooorses!'. Yes dear.



By the end of my stay, it was hard to bid farewell to all the good wine, open fires, paint pots and Bella the pigmy goat. Still, with my lonely desk a-calling, and Ellie the dog was wondering where her mid-morning cups of tea had gone....it was time to come on home. Hello again! 


Sunday, November 1, 2009

When work feels more like play (it's a good day!).





In a bit of a departure from my usual marker-pen adventures, most of my week has been spent painting the adorable 'Smudge'. Talk about therapy. How relaxing it has been to do away with my usually fidgety self, and surrender to the organic nature of creating a painting that comes to life only after stage upon stage and multiple layers of paint. Who knew I had so much patience?
I've spent so many hours in it's company that I've reached the point of zero objectivity, with equal levels of love and dissatisfaction. Give me a year and I might have developed a useful opinion on it. Until then as with all commissions, I just have to cross my fingers and hope it is well received!