A Fairy-tale Wedding

So my aim has been to do a blog post once a month - that seems do-able. But the month of May has just been and gone, and now it's June. So maybe two posts this month? We'll see.

Anyway the highlight of May, for me, had to be the wedding of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. I'm quite the cynic when it comes to love and marriage but my heart melted, if only briefly, when I watched what has to be the most perfect, beautiful and joyous wedding I've ever seen. It was like a fairy-tale come to life. There was this wonderful mix of the pomp and ceremony of the monarchy, and the genuine warmth, humanity and love of  Meghan and Harry. So I've been grabbing any spare moments these past couple of weeks to pore over my 'Royal Wedding Souvenir Specials'; and I just had to attempt some sketches. Here are a couple:-

 

 

Which means my current project has been somewhat side-lined, as work has also been very busy. I have made a start though. All I can tell you at the moment is that it's going to be a combination of pencil sketches and embroidery. I haven't done any embroidery for a while and I'm missing it, but I also want to keep going with the sketches so I'm hoping the mix of the two will work. It's very early stages at the moment so I haven't worked out my technique yet but here is a little peak of my work in progress:-

The inspiration is stories and fairy-tales - I'll expand on that when I have a bit more to show.

Amanda xxx

Beautiful Blossoms in The Tiny Urban Garden

The Flowering Cherry tree in my front garden has been covered in buds, for quite a few weeks now, that have remained resolutely closed against the freezing cold and snow; But this week has seen the most glorious transformation.

At the start of the week, viewed from my living room, the tree looked like this:-

By the middle of the week it looked like this:-

The most beautiful, frothy abundance of blossom; so delicate and yet so vibrant.

 
Mother Nature is magnificent. Imagine if more people had one of these in their front garden. After the cold and dark of Winter we would enter Spring under a canopy of fluttering petals.

Amanda xxx

A Yearning For What?

Since my last post I have made a concerted effort to sit down at my desk and drive my project forward; and it seems to have worked. By the end of last week I had almost finished painting the figures that I had sketched and then the week we are in now, which is drawing to a close as I type, I had booked off as holiday. Perfect...a whole week in which to complete my latest piece of work.

Here are a couple of the painted sketches:-

But I know how easily distracted I can be and the temptation to do other things with a whole week of freedom at my disposal could prove to be too much. Then the 'Beast from the East' arrived, the whole of my immediate world was blanketed in snow, and cosying-up at my desk with a constant supply off hot cups of coffee and tea proved to be ideal conditions for finishing my work - Hooray!

I have titled the piece 'A Yearning for What' and, again, it focuses on home. It consists of a series of nine interiors that I took from magazines because something in them caught my eye, or tugged at my self conscious. I've looked at so many images of interiors now, trying to absorb and identify why I like them, why I don't like them, how a particular composition makes me covet it for my own, that it's sent me dizzy...I've put the magazines out of sight for now!

I sketched a figure to inhabit each of the interiors, all the figures from images of Victoria Beckham that I have collected. She is incredibly beautiful and stylish as well as being a hard working and successful business woman and mother. She is one of my heroines and style icons. I don't wear rose-tinted spectacles; I'm aware she has her faults, as we all do. But a part of me is captivated by her.

This is the complete series:-

And this is a closer look at a couple:-

I even managed to close up my desk once I was done. It's usually open and strewn with stationery, paper, paints, like this:-

But for a day it looked like this:-

So, my week off has been quite productive, and it's been such a treat to watch the snow falling. The biting cold I could have done without and I did go into a mild panic attack one morning when I woke up and realised there was no toastie loaf in the cupboard. I couldn't rest until I'd ventured out for one - which has now been put away, unopened, into the freezer. I really had enough already with my supply of crumpets and hot cross buns.

Another anxious moment was when some news reporter mentioned that we were going to run out of gas. I wish they would get their facts straight before saying things like this out loud on a public broadcast network. This is the kind of thing that can tip a person over the edge...I think it has something to do with age and hormones!!!

Keep warm
Amanda xxx

Re-Set

I need to take stock of where I am with regards to my blog and press a metaphorical re-set button; thinking back over the last year, I didn't really feel like my heart was in it, and I realise that if I'm going to get any benefit from it then I need to be committed - or just not bother. The 'Home' boxes work that I did last year was something I enjoyed immensely, and I was pleased with the end result, but I don't think I recorded the progress enough on my blog. This was partly due to the idea behind it, the with-holding of seeing everything, but I still think I could have shown more.

So, where am I now?

January, the darkest month, has included introspection, contemplation and lots of cosying up with books. A chance to unwind and recharge after the Christmas madness; but I now find myself up against the wall of self-doubt, procrastination and full-on deer-in-the-headlights fear - I have a project to do!

I made a start on it just before Christmas, but because it's had a significant resting period I've lost the momentum, and the idea of re-engaging with the work and moving it on has grown in my head to something almost insurmountable.

This is the kind of problem I need to tackle this year. My fear of things going wrong threatens to stop me doing anything at all.

This is the start of my first image that I sketched out at the end of last year:-

And I have now inked in the outline...it took me weeks longer than it should but it's a start:-

I have a friend who always seems super motivated. She decides to do something and just gets on doing it without any kind of agonising as far as I can tell. I really need to apply a bit of this attitude to myself and stop over-thinking things, just get on with doing my creating, and enjoying doing it.

I'm going to try different approaches to the blog (not sure what yet) to see if I can free myself up a bit. Get more words and thoughts out there. I think I'd started to feel a bit self-conscious, but the original motivation for starting it in the first place was to record my thoughts and my progress for myself. I am hoping to get back to this original plan.

So it's a new year, new green shoots are showing in my garden, and ideas are growing in my head. The page has turned and a new chapter begins.

Amanda xxx

Not Being Selected

At the end of December I learnt that my entry in the Aesthetica Art Prize had not been selected. I was incredibly busy at the time and so didn't really have time to dwell on the news, but was just grateful that they had taken the time to let me know. And now we are in the new year I feel incredibly pleased that I entered; I did have a glimmering hope inside me that my work would be chosen, and I imagined receiving the good news, but I don't feel too disappointed. Entering the prize came me the impetus I needed to bring to life a project that at times I struggled with; because I had a deadline, I had to learn how to work through the problems and obstacles. So even though my work wasn't selected, it does actually exist in the world.

If I had exhibited, visitors would have had the opportunity to peep inside my little house boxes, so here is a little tantalising glimpse inside a couple:-

For the new year I am already planning some new pieces of work that carry on the theme of home, so there will be more of that to come later.

Amanda xxx

Showing Work

The main reason I started this blog was to put my work out into the world.

The initial urge with any work I produce starts with a compulsion to create; to bring an idea in my head out into the world; it's my own form of storytelling.

Following on from this is the desire for other people to see the work, appreciate it, connect with it, draw their own understanding from it.

This is the point at which my blog comes in. It's been a process of getting used to providing access to work that is very personal. But with this last piece of work that I did, I wanted to reach further and so I decided to enter it in the Aesthetica Art Prize.

'I Figure If I Had a Room, I'd Want It To Look Like That'

I really don't have any expectations. The motivation was purely a leap of faith.

Amanda xxx

Project - 'Home'

Home...it's a theme that has been constantly tugging at me, calling out for my full attention, creeping into my thoughts every day. I was obsessively looking through interior magazines trying to figure out why certain pictures of interiors caught my attention. The interest has always been there, but moving house myself, drawing up a list of the things I wanted from my new home, focusing on all the details, seemed to magnify it.

So this summer I gave myself over to it. It felt like the time was right to completely embrace this theme and so I set about compiling some research material for total immersion:-

The first book was The Making of Home by Judith Flanders which charts the evolution of the house into the homes that we know today. Next up was Playing at Home by Gill Perry which explores the different ways in which artists have engaged with this theme - I'm not alone in my obsessive fascination. Then I switched to a novel, Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor, a thriller set in London in1934. The central character, Lydia Langstone, is desperate for 'a room of one's own', inspired by Virginia Woolf's essay of that same name, which of course was next on my reading list. This is a book I had been intending to read for years so I turned the pages with great pleasure and satisfaction.

And so it was finally time to make a start on the artwork itself, which I had decided to create as a series of six cardboard boxes. I've always been enchanted by dolls houses and felt that using cardboard boxes links back to childhood memories of making rudimentary houses and dens, our first attempts at home. I also like to use materials that are readily available, discarded even, and transform them into something unique and tangible.

The first step, on the first box, was to open it completely flat and paint the interior surfaces. Once dry, this was then folded back together and the interior constructed.

This is where my collection of magazines came into their own, providing the furnishings for my little 'Home' box. I then sketched a figure to inhabit the space, put her in position, and sealed it all up with the only opening being a little window. This is a really important aspect of the piece - you long to see everything but are only allowed a little glimpse; like passing a house at night with a warm and welcoming lamp lighting up the scene - you can't help looking, but you can't see everything; And home is bound up in our memories - as we look back through time these memories are only ever experienced as glimpses.

Amanda xxx