Summer Evening in the Austen Garden

 

Finished at long last! 

Jane Austen having an al fresco writing session on an idyllic summer's evening (hence the golden glow in the west!) surrounded by her flowers and her cats and serenaded by the birds. 

I am relieved to finish it because it seemed to become fiddlier by the minute. Miss Austen's minute eyebrows were the last straw - or should I say last pieces to be pasted down. The cats' eyeballs weren't exactly a piece of cake either!

Detail (what's she writing? A letter, a future classic or maybe just her shopping list?)

birdsong!

While I was searching for suitable pieces in magazines I came across a wonderful photo of an old fashioned coach and horses of the sort that thundered past the Austen cottage frontage and which Jane would have heard as she sat in her garden. I am very tempted to have a go at that scene but for the time being I'm tidying up the studio and my scrappings-littered table and going with the flow and seeing what surfaces in my doodle book ..

Also have to choose and photograph two paintings to send off for the great big British Naives show at Delamore House in May.

Right, time for a celebratory cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit I think