2022

Been a bit busy building the business at Ardington and also renovating our forever-home, so not much ink has been splashed about this year...

My final piece of the year. I started it whilst teaching techniques in a workshop and it ended up being cut into smaller pictures to be donated to a charity auction (National Brain Appeal ALIM22)

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Oh and the other project of the year that kept me rather busy was a very special wedding stationery commision for my son Thomas and his lovely fiancée Lucy - now obviously wife!

Fabriano Artistico 640gsm HP - 56 x 76cm

Here I show the build-up steps of their piece - which is the partner to the seating plan that had book titles not table numbers - as you can imagine, the pressure to get this right was palpable but having said that, this turned out to be one of my favourite pieces ever!

Here I started with the main colour theme of the wedding flowers

Hanging it for a while gets the majority of the water off but the paper can start to curl so whilst it was still damp I lay it flat on the floor...

I was trying to break up the expanse of colour with stark lines, bled into with white but felt they were too strong so ended up taking it outside and hosing them mostly away...

...as it dries flat it keeps its shape with no need to use heavy stuff to flatten.

...after the first hosing down the lines are greatly softened

More or less finished after its final hosing down and having all the guests names scattered around, oh and not forgetting the secret message to the happy couple that I haven't told them about..!