A Celebration of Nature, Worcester Cathedral

Some dates for your diaries!

I've been working on a very exciting project with my Mum, ceramic artist Lit Smith, for the last 6 months or so.

We are going to be having a two person exhibition in the Chapter House of Worcester Cathedral which will be open to the public from the 27th April to the 8th May. The exhibition is titled 'A Celebration of Nature', and was initially inspired by the Green Man carvings found in the Cathedral. Mum and I are both very influenced by our beautiful surroundings in the Worcestershire countryside, so this seemed like the perfect theme for us.

The Chapter House is a stunning round stone room off the cloisters in Worcester Cathedral, and somehow seems to get bigger every time Mum and I visit!

This is a very special event to us because it is my first exhibition, and the first one that Mum and I have ever done together. We have also been lucky enough to meet with the very talented Worcester Cathedral Stonemasons who have kindly agreed to have a special display of their work at the exhibition.

Mum has created a beautiful range of pieces for the exhibition, from individual ceramic leaves to what will be a stunning collaboration with local blacksmith, Jonathan Clift. The exhibition will also include my original dip pen, ink and watercolour drawings, with prints available.

If you get the chance to visit, please be sure to sign the Visitor Book and we'd love your feedback.

Insects, Photography and Folk Music

It's been a very inspiring weekend.

Firstly, my very talented friend Beth (or Westie to me) came over for a creative weekend. She has very kindly photographed my latest creations for me. I have been working on some insect jewellery. I've always loved curiosity cabinets and specimens in museums, so I decided to have a go at creating my own 'specimens'. All of the insects in my jewellery are printed copies of my original watercolour illustrations so no living critters were harmed in the making of these!

The jewellery will be appearing in my Etsy shop very soon, but in the meantime, here is a sneak peek. My photography skills are shoddy at best, so a huge thank you to Beth for doing such a wonderful job!

Red Admiral Pendant

Ladybird Bracelet

The second part of my inspiring weekend was going to see Emily Smith live at The Artrix in Bromsgrove. This was a surprise Mother's Day present for a very unsuspecting Mum, despite me playing the 'Traiveller's Joy' album every single time I saw her for over a week!

We actually discovered Emily Smith and her band in quite a bizarre way; when we were at a Patty Griffin concert last year, the two people sitting next to us mistook me for her. Sadly I had to disappoint them as I don't have a Scottish accent and can't sing a note in tune! We were so curious about her though, that we looked her up and loved her music!

We had a fantastic evening and I thoroughly recommend going if you can catch the rest of the tour. The Artrix definitely wins our prize for best wheelchair facilities and friendly staff. They really couldn't have been more helpful. We're already planning our next visit!

I love the storytelling in folk music and now have a newfound appreciation of surprisingly cheerful murder ballads! Here is 'The Twa' Sisters' from a different performance.

Here is a little video of 'Traiveller's Joy' taken on my phone last night:

To top off our perfect evening we even got to meet Emily and her husband, Jamie McClennan, who were both lovely!

What's in my sketchbook: February

This month I discovered a book called 'The Bible of Illuminated Letters'. It's a really interesting resource because you can find out about the history of illuminated letters and how these have changed over time, but also learn step-by-step how to create your own.

I didn't have all of the inks and materials to hand so I just had a go at sketching a few of the examples out. I then did some speedy colouring with good old felt tip pen.

Ottonian 'K'

Gothic 'Q'

Neo-Classical 'E'. I think this style of lettering is my
favourite.

Whenever I teach drawing to children, I always make sure that nobody uses a rubber. I think, especially in your sketchbook, the best way to learn is by making mistakes and drawing over your work until it looks the way you want it to. To prove that I practise what I preach, I've included a sketch of a deer that I've altered. I began by sketching a deer skull and then added the features to it. If you look closely, you will see that I changed the position of the nose because it was initially too low.

Unsurprisingly, I have some new books, so March's sketches are going to be all about anatomy!

Signs of Spring

I am definitely an autumn/winter person, but even I am looking forward to some sunshine after the amount of rain we've had over the last few months.

Today I've been very excited because it hasn't rained!! There have even been patches of blue sky and moments of sunshine. Woody and I decided to make the most of it and see if we could discover any signs of life emerging from this soggy winter.

And finally, a 'hello' from Matty...

... and Gerry!

Mood Board: Dreams Unwind

I hurt my back this week so haven't been able to spend as much time down the workshop as I would like to. Instead I have been learning new skills on Skillshare (a definite favourite of mine).

I am nowhere near as confident on the computer as I am when using good old fashioned dip pen and ink, so I decided to have a go at Introduction to Photoshop: Fundamentals for Beginners. I found the course incredibly useful, particularly for creating image templates. Meg Lewis breaks things down really clearly, and the final project is to produce your own mood board and colour palette using images sourced from Pinterest.

I was inspired by Stevie Nicks' 'Rhiannon' and all things witchy and magical for my mood board. All of the images used, and their original sources, can be found on my Pinterest page. 

Recommended Read: Sketching from the Imagination

Another of my Christmas books from Harvey (he really is annoyingly good at buying presents), 'Sketching from the Imagination: An Insight into Creative Drawing' by 3D Total is a fantastic resource for artists or an insightful read for anyone interested in how artists produce their work.

'Sketching from the Imagination' features 50 different artists, working in both traditional and digital media. Each artist has written about how they use their sketchbooks and why sketching is important to them and their work.

This is the sort of book you can dip into to look for inspiration, or read as a whole. I chose to read the whole book because I find it fascinating to learn how different artists work. This was also a particularly useful book for my sketchbook challenge this year. I picked up so many tips from the artists, such as  the importance of sketching every day to develop your work, basing imaginary creatures on existing animals to develop sound anatomy, and keeping your sketchbook a 'safe place' where you are not afraid to take risks.

My favourite artist from the book was Jean-Baptiste Monge. I really enjoyed reading about how he creates his mischievous faerie characters. He has a book of his artwork on his Etsy shop, which I am very tempted by at the moment!

I thoroughly recommend this book as an excellent resource that I know I will be dipping into regularly.

What's in my sketchbook: January

I must admit, I've found my sketchbook challenge a lot more difficult to stick to than I'd expected. Although I haven't managed to do something every day, I have been pretty close. My aim for February, is to do something every day.

My beautiful Lisa Parker sketchbook

Some of my many notes I made when reading 'S.' this month

I am completely addicted to Skillshare courses at the moment. If you haven't come across it before, it's a website where artists and designers can upload online courses to teach you new skills from Photoshop to starting a fashion business. Like most creative people, I find it hard to enjoy learning something new if a course is too rigid and prescriptive. I like to learn the basics and then have the freedom to play and experiment so I can find my own way of doing it. Skillshare is perfect for this because you can watch online videos at your own pace and complete course tasks if you want to as well.

I decided to have a go at a calligraphy course this month, partly because of the New Year sale, and partly because it will be a useful skill for one of my projects this month. I am ambidextrous, but write with my left hand, so I often find that this makes me quite clumsy. My initial calligraphy attempts in my sketchbook were very blotchy and smudged, but as I began to get the hang of it, I really enjoyed it. Calligraphy is definitely something I would like to continue practising and I feel some more reference books may be added to my collection in the coming months!

A rather messy early attempt!

Progress!

I have also been drawing some very quick stag sketches for my own reference, and also to work out what I would like my next exhibition piece to look like.

Deer eye close-up sketch

Playing around with layout