Little Moments

(Tulips & Boats ~ Acrylic on paper)

Hello!

And 'Hello' to lots of scrumptious new followers too ~ thank you for visiting my little blog, it's lovely to have you here!

So...another week drifts by. I have been doing many little sketches in the quiet moments (the ones that appear when small hands are busy with the Play Doh) and I've also been having a little think about my paintings.

I was thinking about Affordable Art. When you are an artist, pricing work is a very Big Deal. You don't want to charge too much and price yourself out of the market, but you don't want to under price yourself either, as for one it makes you look a bit amateurish and secondly the price is not reflecting the time, skill and materials it has taken to produce an original piece. I hope that my work is reasonably priced taking all those things into consideration, and I just wanted to share a bit about that side of my work with you.

As my thoughts wandered on, I drew the conclusion that there are a lot of people out there that would probably love to own an original piece of art, but just can't afford it (financially speaking, it's not been the best of times has it).

So I had an idea.

Affordable Originals.

The picture above is the first one of a little series I'm going to be working on at random (in between bigger pieces).

They will be painted onto Fabriano acid free paper and will come with a mount. And they will all be 5" x 5" square (the image that is) and cost £45.00 which includes P&P costs in the UK.

Do you think it's a good idea?

I won't be doing any prints of these either, they will literally be one off pieces. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as I would dearly like to make my work available to a wider audience.

~~~~~~~~~~

The other little artist in our home has also been busy drawing again, and I had to share this latest little gem with you which she drew after seeing lambs in the field:

There she is pointing to the wavy lines and telling me that that is the grass.

I love her little drawings!

Other delicious Little Moments have occured this week. The other morning I awoke early before anyone else and tiptoed downstairs to enjoy the peace and quiet with a nice mug of coffee. As I sat by the window, I noticed a little visitor raiding my wild strawberry basket for Nesting Materials ~ I'm in awe of little birds like that, their tenacious strength and determination to survive and rear little families in the wild...

These beautiful daffodils which were marked 'end of season' have produced gasps of delight from us, their chubby buds opening to reveal petticoat layers of pale cream and buttery yellow petals.

...talking of flowers, I've decided to update my Folksy shop soon with some pretty floral corsages, here are two of them to give you an idea of what Im on about:

...they're made with Rowan wools and finished with a nice hand made ceramic button all the way from a little place in Cornwall. They will come in their own little gauzy turquoise gift bag as well.

I miss making things like this as regularly as I used to, but there are not enough hours in the day!

I also miss making things like this patchwork lavender heart...

...I made this for our home a little while back and forgot to show you!

I don't get chance to get the sewing machine out that much these days actually, my one day of free time is usually spent painting which indulges my creative spirit once a week and that is a Good Thing for now, but for the times in between...?

I discovered that if I didn't indulge my creative spirit, I started to feel a bit trapped and demented. Honestly, I had serious withdrawal symptoms (irritable, grumpy etc as I battled with too many ideas and not enough time to make them real) and so over time I have taught myself how to be creative every day so I don't get those feelings. When my daughter was first born, I struggled enormously with not having time to paint etc, a baby was far too time consuming and tiring for things like that and art was a random thing for a long while. I missed it too.

Since those early days, I have accepted that my time isn't always necessarily my own and I have broadened my horizons (creatively speaking).

Every day I try to do something, even if it's one row of crochet late evening, baking and decorating a cake, finger painting with the Little One, making shapes from clouds, or planting seeds... I learnt from being a Mum that creativity reaches into all manner of corners and isn't about just painting any more. As simple as it sounds it actually took me a while to understand that and sharing creative time with my daughter, and teaching her how to do things is often more rewarding than the rush of joy I get from completing a picture.

And... I have my sketch book for those ideas that absolutely and completely must come out of my head and onto the page at once! :D

I will leave you this week with another big thank you for all your lovely and kind comments, for taking the time to read my ramblings and pop in to see me, it's ever so nice of you and it makes me very happy that you do!

I wish you a Happy Bank Holiday weekend, and hope the sun peeps out of the forcast rain clouds for you!

Sending love

Julia x x x