Snow in July ...

Just taking a break here in blogland from the depths of winter:

 

I've got a bit muddled with my trays of sorted clippings and appear to have lost some important bits altogether, so I thought I'd come here then return to the worktable with new eyes. And maybe find those elusive bits. In fact they might be under the table now I come to think of it.

Even worse, they might be underfoot.

 

So, the scene is St Nicholas's in Steventon. The time, Christmas. The protagonists, Jane and Cassandra Austen.

Their father was the vicar there. That's going to be him, at the church door.

 

I have taken a few liberties, as is my wont.

I mean, I don't think a dog would have been allowed into church for one thing. And the spire was added to the building years later, after the Steventon era of Jane. And I'm not religious enough to know whether Anglicans have what looks like it might be a midnight service.

As for Regency guardian angels ... 

But it's the atmosphere that counts, right?

It's going to be a really traditional Christmas card.

 

There's still a long way to go, but consider the initial stage:

I'm nearer the finish than the start.

Jane and Cassandra relocate to the US

Sold this week, one of my most popular (card-wise) original collages:

 

Now parcelled up and ready to fly to a new home in Philadelphia.

 

But still available, of course, in giclee print form from my website:

www.amandawhite-contemporarynaiveart.com

 

and as cards and small digital prints from my online shop:

http://AmandaAWhite.etsy.com

Wilder Weather in Haworth

I took this new take on Haworth Parsonage (yeah, I know, I have a bit of an obsession with some buildings) to the printer for scanning before sending it off for an exhibition in Yorkshire next month.

I thought it was finished.

 

 

 

When I picked it up I immediately knew it wasn't. A week's break from an image is a wonderful thing I have learned. Even better than looking at it in a mirror which is another way of refreshing the old eyeballs.

So I set about adding bits and pieces...

 

 

Compare and contrast - it's like one of those spot the difference puzzles.

The finished picture (forgive the pallor and blur - it's my own snap and I'm not very good at getting lighting and things right) has more weather and lots of manuscripts. I think I may have been influenced by the witches in Macbeth that I've been hearing about and reading and remembering from school lately. The fact that so many great classic novels were written by three different people in that house is nothing short of sorcery to my mind. So I conjured up a full blown Haworth full moon storm.

The question is, is it really and truly finished now?

The next one is can I get back to my Christmas church?

Then, what on earth will the printer think when I turn up with this one again?

And when can I get to the post office to send it off?

 

So many questions, so little time ...

In the meantime here's a link to the exhibition at the Art In The Mill Gallery:

http://www.feva.info/programme/view/6pN81VlQ/now-for-naive

In the Studio

Started a new collage ... it as it this sort of stage which looks very unpromising, I know.

Lots of scribblings and prompts in my notebook (I really flinch away from glorifying it with the word sketchbook). My plastic tray of  "possibles" clippings which have been gleaned from my increasingly unwieldy general collection.

And the blocked in proportions of the building I am aiming to portray - ooh look it's not a house!

Beyond the confines of this tidy looking still life is the organised chaos of my big work table. You really don't want to go there.

At one point the chaos encroached so much that another plastic tray of smaller clippings inside the white tray with the "possibles" got dumped on the floor to give me more elbow room.

This is what happened:

Give him credit - he does look a bit guilty. To say nothing of uncomfortable.