It's here :)

On sunday the  artwork was scanned thanks to Guy Venables at studio 106 in Hove, after which like a paramedic i rushed home on my bicycle, like a surgeon operated cleanly and efficiently with my photoshop scalpel, deftly uploaded to Marian's vista print account and then called to let her know the time had come to order... and all this before lunch! Thank you all for following and if you'd like a calendar, please contact either marian or myself :)
Lotsa lovely 12-12-12

Nearly there :)

Last night Sylvain came over and we put all of our pictures together to see the work produced during the year. It was brilliant to look back over them and finally to see how they all fit together. I was looking to do a portrait page for December with all the Hardings and farm staff to give a nice community feel but in the end had to admit that portraiture is HARD and not my forte! So instead, Sylvain and I designed a December page together around a Christmass Mandala theme... Ta da, so here some snippets for you and if all goes according to plan, The calendar will be complete by Sunday evening! Will see you all then!
(see sketch-i-ness left and right :)

Higgeldy Jig!

So things have gone a little giggly round the edges, the exhibition will take place at some time early next year but we are sticking to the original dead line for pictures being completed. This means that here is the latest offering of, yes, at last! Cows. I'm thinking they'd make fabulous wall paper if anybody knows how... Then I have two more to finish and Sylvain assures me that she is good to go with three more, all by next Wednesday. We are aiming for scanning on Friday and Calendar ready for print by Sunday! Shew. If anyone is interested in pre-orders, please let me know so we can fluff about numbers and see what needs to be doing :)

Saturday 27th October 2012

Rainbows stretching across the sky, green fields, good company and bitingly cold winds. You can feel that winter is upon us with the icy chill too icy to make stopping in a soggy field to sketch seem appealing, so instead we walked and soaked up the sights. The landscape at Court Lodge Farm has become familiar and it is like visiting a friend for tea, drinking the wildlife and sipping the trees while dunking feet in the fields delectibly. After an hour or so in the fields and with rainbows at the tips of our fingers we sheltered in the pub and at last did some little bit of sketching, this time portraits before joining the Hardings and Rea for an attempted bonfire thwarted by the wetness of the wood. After this, tired and drunk on country we headed Brighton side with me and my head nod nod nodding to the ebb and flow of A road traffic.
Due to unforseeable circumstances we are postponing the exhibition until the new year. The calendar will go ahead with production and be available by the end of November and I will be sure to post notifications as soon as I know more.

This Saturday the 27th October 2012

Hey everyone, We're heading to Court Lodge this saturday the 27th to do some sketching, plan for the exhibition next month and just generally hang out somewhere incredibly positive. With winter well on the way, we all need a little some of something positive, so join us for the penultimate Court Lodge trip, feel free to contact me if you would like to join up or need a little help getting there :)

Calendar sketch July 2012

July sketch! Building some lovely momentum and loving how much you can get done when there are deadlines to meet :) Don't forget we are aiming for the exhibition on the 25th of November at Moorhen cottage, so book the date and start spreading the word.

June 2012

The ball is rolling! I realise I have not come good with May, but here is June and July is close on 80% unless I decide to redo it! Looking forward to November the 25 and asking anyone out there who reads this to please keep an eye out for umbrellas, if you find any, gather and let me know! Happy Monday :)

Saturday the 29th of September

Sometimes things just slide together like puzzle pieces in a butter field, without planning we meet friends and if you're looking for something, it never hurts to sit down for a cup of tea :) After about 20minutes of collating bus timetables between Polegate, Hastings, Bexhill and Eastbourne, I went to sit in the parking lot to have some tea and contemplate Taxi's, and lo there sat Serogo a wonderful man from Papua New Guinea who I've met through Clare's involvement with the Free West Papua Campaign. For those of you who don't know about the independence struggle, please follow the link and have a look. As luck would have it Clare collected us both and Marian was wonderful enough to make us breakfast with some hedgerow jelly, mmm. Think it was half way through a slice of bacon that I suddenly wondered if I was eating one of the pigs from the yard, but felt quite relieved to find them both alive and kicking in their pen opposite the cows! After breakfast I took my leave and wondered into the fields, following fox tracks in the mud and finding Clare and Serogo removing docks from the field which has to be done manually as pesticide's are off limits for organic establishments like Court lodge. and then... an apparition... two people in their pajama's, fun-fur coats and wellies broke through the mud of the horizon and approached to offer me red wine! Smiled into my soul bones when strangers give the biggest, most wonderful hugs, and shook my head all the way back to Brighton, a smile nesting in the corner of my mind, at the improbability of the encounter. Unfortunately I was unable to capture the moment on film but may just end up doing and artists impression of the lovelies coming down the mud track. And the big news! Tentatively, we have agreed on Sunday the 25th of November as the day for the exhibition at Court Lodge to take place at moor hen cottage. I'm thinking umbrella's, mulled wine, barrels with fire and with luck some clear or at least dry sky. I will be exhibiting the works produced throughout the year and calendars WILL be available alongside original artwork... let everybody know!

Saturday 29 September

Hi :)
I will be going out to Court Lodge for a morning visit tomorrow, early! The weather says sun will be blazing and everyone is welcome to join. The aim in this last quarter is to remedy the illusion of the vacuum around the Court lodge Calendar Sketch project. We made it out to the farm in August for some dock removal, but I forgot to post pictures, please see them now! So technically speaking... haha, will be great to see you tomorrow morning!
Positive.

Sunday 29 July 2012

Scattered sunshine with rays of cloud, a cacophony of flowers and a drizzle of bumble bees, bugs, butterflies and other small things like stinging nettles and barbed seeds that collect around the ankles on your socks! Sylven and I arrived mid morning and sat for some time at the 13th century St Mary Magdalene Church, soaking in the sun whilst sitting upon some stumps found in the cemetery. David Harding was hosting a moth talk and bustled off to collect moths from a moth trap and once more was dazzling in his knowledge of local fauna. At moments like that I often find myself wishing that there was time enough to just sit for the whole day and talk about the habits of moths and the worms that they come from... How inspiring to be privy to the accumulation of a life time! After the church we drifted down towards the willow wood where a red fox glimpsed us from beneath the trees and we sat once more on the banks of the pond, simply overwhelmed by green. Green trees, plants, grass, shade, water and at times it seemed the sky too would green out above us and descend. Then walking, or wading through nettles and grass and barbed-bally things and trees and hills and fences to ford and hills to climb and cows and pigs and calves and lovely people... Court Lodge is really astounding, a whole paragraph and I have not even mentioned the flowers! It's over half way now, already into the eighth month and it is wonderful to look back and feel the changes. It is so much more than a graduation of colour, the growing of leaves or the changing patterns of light tracing trees from the sky, but rather an expansion of space. Space that contracts and becomes smaller with each visit but only because it fills with more wonderful things than could ever be described in a life time.