Hello!

I have not been very active here for many reasons, but I do some explaining here, in case you’re interested to learn why things have been very quiet.

Despite doing nothing with my art for a long, long while because, well, let’s face it, 2021 was a dumpster fire that followed the choking oils spill that was 2020, I have been thinking about it for a while. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.

I have many plans to return to art in 2022, and I will speak on them more as they edge towards beginning.

There is one project I’m very excited about for 2022, and it’s starting soon. I’m terribly behind in my preparations for it, but I’m going to do it anyway. The project is this:

Coffee & Creativity is a monthly live stream where anyone who wishes to participate joins me for two hours of a Sunday morning once a month just to create art together. Those who wish can participate in the monthly prompts, which I will be doing. Otherwise, you can just join to create with no restrictions on their creative expression.

The first stream is on the 2nd of January - coming up really quickly. Lord I need to get everything sorted quickly - and the prompt for January is Orchid​. Purely for the reason that I have an unfinished digital piece of an orchid that I would like to get done.

This will be happening on my art YouTube channel 02/01/2022 at 9:00am or so. If you wish to participate, subscribe to the channel and I’ll see you in less than a week.

​I’m excited to start something new and get back into creating art. I hope you’ll join me.

It has been a while since I've blogged. I apologize if anyone was waiting on an update. I've been a little blindsided by a sudden and urgent need to move house, which I'm trying to get done by the beginning of October. I have not been doing much art at all. Instead I've been sorting and packing. It's slow going, mostly because I hate moving, and I'm not particularly trying very hard to pack everything away.

I did manage to get away to the lake for a few days shortly after the shock of the moving news, and it was a good thing. I did manage to work on a new oil painting there, but I'm far from finished, so I won't be posting pics just yet.

It is my fervent hope that I'll be able to finish that painting as well as my planned October piece once I'm moved and settled. That way, I'll not be any paintings behind in my twelve month challenge, even if I didn't technically complete a painting in September.

But, I've not been idle. Since I can't really do much art currently, I've decided to open another online store. Ladles and jelly spoons, I am now on Society 6.

My prints are now available on both Society 6 and Redbubble now.

I figured it couldn't help to get my work out in as many venues as possible. I rather like Society6 and Redbubble. While I earn next to nothing (and would regardless of whether I sold a lot or not - the margins are slim), I also don't have to worry about getting the pieces printed, mounted and shipped. These sites do that all for me. I appreciate that. The less time I must fuss with these things, the more time I have to work on creating. That's a win for me, even if I don't earn much at all.

Society 6 is very much like Redbubble, but I have to say, I much prefer Redbubble offering links to specific artworks, so that folks travelling to that store interested in a particular piece are not bombarded by all the pieces in the various formats. They can just click the links provided for, say, Stormbringer, and they'll get taken to the place where all of the items with that particular artwork can be found.

So far, I've not been able to replicate that for my Society 6 shop, so visitors will have to wade through all the products and artworks to find the product they want in the artwork they want. That's a little irritating.

Granted, I've not played around in Society 6 very long. It might be that they have this functionality, and I've just not found it yet.

As of the writing of this blog, I have only three four artworks up - my paintings. All that is available are art prints and some stationery items, which is perhaps the way I'll keep it. Perhaps I'll upload my Wandsworth Bird as a kind of merch in case folks would like to support me but don't fancy any of the art pieces I have. If I do that, then I'll make it everything else - all the non-artwork related items. I can't imagine they'd sell at all, but we'll see.

In the next few days, I'll be uploading my other pieces, or as many of them as I have on this computer.

So, there we have it. Life is crazy and uncertain at the moment, and I've not been able to create much. But I've been working, still. It's not much, but it's something. We do what we can with what we have.

Wishing you all well.

​Ciao.