Fail Big, Fail Often! -  This is a quote I heard from another artist a long while ago. It really clicked with me when I first heard it, and I now have it stuck on the chest of drawers in the studio where I can see it every time I’m ‘Failing Big’ yet again! 

It’s quotes like this that keep me going when I get stuck doing painting after painting that isn’t working out how I’ve seen it in my mind’s eye at the outset. Time after time I will make the same mistakes and my efforts will look clumsy . . .  and then . . . (hopefully/usually) . . . the day finally arrives when something clicks, and all those disappointing paintings pay off; what I was aiming for, for such a painfully long time, finally happens and I have a painting that is pretty much how I intend it to look.

Here’s longingly hoping that this will happen one day with roses, which are my nemesis. I envisage these gossamer, floaty, translucent things of delight - but it just isn’t happening yet; roses are such complicated structures, and with my double vision I lose track of which part I’m supposed to be painting!

Hopefully though, as I keep studying these delicate, beautiful flowers while painting them from life, and my tenacity in keeping on failing(!) will finally bring about the results I want. In the meantime, I will just keep plodding on, Failing Big, Failing Often, and loving every minute of it. 

If you are also trying to get somewhere with what you love to do, be brave, bold and tenacious, and remember this inspiring quote, it’s a good one! 🌸

‘Chinese Lanterns” 10” x 8” oil on board.

Every Autumn I see the glorious colours of Chinese Lanterns and determine to plant some for the following year - and then suddenly Autumn is here again and I still haven’t got any in the garden! Thank goodness for kind and lovely village friends who were so generous to bring not only a big bunch for us to enjoy in a vase in the sitting room (where it looks gorgeous in the hearth), but also another bunch ready to hang and dry, which I hung in the Cwtch so that I could paint them - what a joy to mix those vibrant colours!

Speaking of Autumn - how did that happen so quickly? I can hardly believe we are about to say hello to October already. I’m not a person who enjoys the dark, wet, cold days, and even colder nights, very much (it can be very hard to keep oneself warm and dry in a wheelchair when the weather is cold), but I have some friends and family for whom this is their favourite time of year so I am determined to try to embrace their enthusiasm! Certainly, on a clear, frosty day the colours in the countryside are amazing, and even a murky misty day, with the jackdaws cawing in the trees, can have its charm; so I will look forward to trying to capture the changing seasons with my oil paints - and wrap up very warmly while I’m doing it.

I will be taking part in an exhibition with Chipping Norton Arts at Chipping Norton Theatre Gallery from September 30th to October 19th. It is part of the Chipping Norton Arts Festival which is taking place in venues around the town on Saturday October 5th. There will be lots happening on the day, so do go along if you can, and I hope you will also enjoy the CNarts exhibition at the Theatre over the next couple of weeks (I’m not sure of opening times yet but will post on my Facebook page when I find out - and please be aware if you have limited mobility,  that the gallery is up a flight of stairs with no lift or stairlift unfortunately).

Also on October 5th, I will have a stall selling art prints, cards (including some new Christmas designs) and handwoven items at the ‘Dogs for Good’ Autumn Craft Fair, at the Dogs for Good training centre at Blacklocks Hill, Banbury. The Fair runs from 11am - 3pm, and I would love to see you if you can make it. Boo and some of his DfG friends will be there too, ready to give a waggy hello. x

Sweet Peas 6” x 8” oil on board

There was so much to enjoy on my walk with Boo today, but the highlight for me was the noisy little housemartin family that had made its nest under the school roof. It was the sound of the noisy youngsters, obviously more than ready for some lunch, that first stopped me in my tracks, and then I watched as one of the parents kept flying back and forth with tasty goodies for them. Boo waited so patiently as I watched the parent bird darting in and out from under the roof, with his children never letting up in their demands for more food. I couldn’t see them in the nest but they must be getting quite big and like hungry teenagers by now. 

When I got home I picked a bunch of sweet peas to put on the mantle piece - amazingly, the strong winds and fierce rainstorms of the weekend hadn’t done any damage to them  and they were still beautiful (unlike our poor, battered geraniums). Once I’d brought them into the house and put them in the little glass vase I couldn’t resist painting them.

Sweet peas have always been a favourite flower of mine and hold lovely memories for me. My Dad grew wonderful long rows of sweet peas every year, and when they were flowering Mum would let me take a bunch to school each week to give to my headmaster’s wife. My headmaster at the junior school was extremely strict, and in all honesty as a little child in the infant class I was quite scared of him - but his wife was very kind and gentle, and I was very fond of her. 

We had a school savings club which she was in charge of, so each week I would take the half of my pocket money that hadn’t been spent on sweets to school and deposit it in the savings club, and each week while they were in flower, I would take a bunch of sweet peas with me too. Dad must have had such green fingers because I seem to remember taking these little bunches of flowers for that lovely lady for weeks on end throughout the summer. 🌸

‘Tulips’, work in progress, 8” x 8” oil on board

These beautiful tulips were a present from a dear friend who I met up for coffee with yesterday, and they were so pretty I knew I just had to paint them!

Because I wanted to use the limewashed floorboards of the Studio floor as a backdrop, I took the tulips out of their vase and lay them down on the floor, arranging them until I thought  the angle of the flowers against the floorboards worked. I quickly took a photo before placing them back in their vase a couple of moments later.

Usually I paint flowers ’alla prima’, from life in one session, but I wanted to savour my time painting these, so today I just concentrated on doing a thin under-painting using lots of turps, checking the photo to get the composition right. Once the under-painting is dry I will add the final thick and juicy paint, always looking at the fresh flowers for their true colours and tones (photographs are never true to the original), trying as always to keep the painting as loose and fresh as I can - never an easy task for me!

I really enjoyed my time in my little Cwtch studio painting these today, it was wonderful having the window open and the door flung wide, with the reflections of the garden pond dancing on the ceiling and a bumble bee buzzing in and out of the doorway as I painted. The clocks go forward tonight, which means lovely light evenings to enjoy. Spring is here. 🌷

‘Chinese Pots and Daffodils’ 8” x 10” oil on board

Like so many in the UK I’ve been laid low with a chest infection the past couple of weeks, which has left me feeling very out of sorts. But today, when I took Boo for his morning walk, there were so many early signs of Spring I couldn’t help but feel better! As we went up past the fields along Church Road the tractors were out cutting the hedgerows in the fine, warm weather - the scents of all that freshly pruned green wood were so fresh, and so evocative of the Springs of my youth.

Further along our walk we saw lots of snowdrops, a lone daffodil by the bus shelter, and even brave daisies in flower on the village green opposite Cafe de la Post.

My husband had bought me a bunch of daffodils, and I placed them in my Dad’s old ginger jar where they looked so pretty against the blue and white glazed pot. I made an arrangement with another little Chinese bowl from my collection, and placed them on the floor by my easel to paint from my chair.

I have a real problem with getting ellipses right and often tend to feel that I have failed when they aren’t quite perfect, so I have to constantly remind myself that every painting I do will take me one little step nearer to to finally - hopefully - getting them just right. . . As someone once said, “There is no such thing as failure, it’s simply another step towards success” (or something like that!) 😊

We are promised another couple of unseasonably warm and sunny days so I hope you are able to get out and about and enjoy them too.