Giclee Print sale
I am offering up for pre-order these five Giclee prints taken from paintings in my sketchbook.
What is a Giclee print I hear you ask? It's a fine art digital print but at archive quality (no fading) and it's printed onto a paper (German Etching) that is very similar to the watercolour paper that I paint onto, so it looks like an original painting.
Your print will not be watermarked like those below- that's just for internet copyright purposes - your print will be signed by yours truly and come unmounted ready for you to frame.
All the prints are A4 in size (with a small white border inc) and cost ÂŁ20 including p&p in the UK and will arrive by the end of January.
- postage will be worked out for any sales abroad once you have emailed the destination.
Thank you so much, Claire x
Camas a' Chaisteil
Ahmore, North Uist
Lochcarnon Road
Clachan Sands
Isle of Harris, Seilebost.
Hebrides painting work
As the year draws to an end, I've found it has galvanised me to complete the body of paintings I have been working on ever since we visited The Hebrides back in April.
I have been steadily working away filling a sketchbook and creating ideas for future pattern designs in-between all the other things I also do. I find I like to nest a bit on my work before sharing it and now I find I have a lot to show.
The thing that caught my painters eye the most in The Hebrides were the patterns these little pieces of land make as they are cut through by waterways and creeks. I have enjoyed painting them over & over. I love the way the horizon blends in as the water is reflected in the skyÂ
I have also played around with granulating medium recently. This salt-marsh painting in Leverburgh was perfect for it. Granulating medium separates the pigment and binder allowing the colour to settle onto the surface of the paper making lots of texture,
I'm gearing up to have a little sale of some of these pieces - so watch this space if you're interested, Claire x
Finding the patterns
As a painter who also designs surface patterns for fabrics etc, I am always instinctively drawn to find the pattern in landcapes.
I've recently re-learnt the benefit of repeat drawing and painting the same scene using a variety of medias. In doing this the mind, eye and hand join forces to develop a language of mark-making to represent the landscape and as one makes more responses of the same scene, one begins to edit colours and marks too.
And for me, that's where the ideas for future patterns begin to emerge.
Outer Hebrides painting work in progress
I have been working my way through the wealth of inspiration I found since returning from our 3 week adventure around some of the islands of the Outer Hebrides.
There was so much colour, texture and mood to capture.
I did try to work on site but found either the rain or the cramped cab conditions in the camper van a real challenge.
So most of my work has been done from photographs and sketchy sketches back home in the studio where conditions can be controlled!
I loved the colour palette of the Uist islands the best from all the islands we visited (I did a little write up of that in a previous post somewhere) - peaty brown, pink and burgundy - yum.
The beaches are legendary and with good reason too.
Lots of cloud and sky with beautiful delicate hues and fluffly clouds. Sometimes the weather changes very quickly and so stormy indigo blue clouds can roll in very quickly.
All of which makes this watercolour painter very happy.
10 years
It hardly seems it but it's been 10 years since I officially started my self-employed adventure.
I finished studying in 1989 with a degree in Fashion & Textiles; specialising in Printed Textiles.
But that career never really got off the ground before I found myself looking at something steadier and as I love kids, that was training to be a teacher.
As a primary school teacher I eventually specialised my role into teaching children with Additional Needs and helping their parents to find their way through all the support services available.
Fast forward a good few years; I had two of my own kids, I supported my husband in setting up his own business and had been juggling the Working Mother role p/t for a long while. When the prospect of federating with other schools ( this also meant helping them with their work load) came along I knew my time in teaching was done.
I had, for a while, found myself using my non-working Friday to paint as a way to manage the stress of my role as SENCO in school.
At first I was very rusty after such a long hiatus but the more I painted the more I re-found my skills and re-discovered the joy of a creative life.
The balance between teaching for work and painting for fun gradually inched along until the moment came when I let it tip over into Painting for Work - and here we are 10 years later.
I have tried a lot of things during the last decade; I learnt how to use a computer to create surface pattern designs (when I left college we cut and stuck) I have had agents sell those designs here and abroad, I have visited a lot of local (and not-so) galleries and had my work exhibited and sold, I have attended art fairs and exhibited and experienced the highs and lows of being amongst other painters wanting a sale, I have run countless workshops for children and adults focussed on offering creative experience and improvement. I've tried and failed and tried and suceeded. It's been a patchwork.
An artists life is a complicated one - you have to hustle, have many eggs in your basket of offerings, never take it personally and get back up again and again.
I have printed, sewn, painted and designed pretty much everyday and been all the happier for it.
At this 10 year juncture things have changed yet again and I am re-making what a 'normal' week might look like for me but I now know from past experience that things always develop in their own way if you always say yes to opportunities and allow for a little magic too
Berlin 2022
We are just back from a week pounding the streets of Berlin - it was hot; 34 degrees one day!
That did not deter us from getting out and about every day for full days of sightseeing.
There was inevitably lots of history to absorb at all manner of cultural points. The Museum of German Resistance is, in my opinion, too-little known - both as a place to visit but also as a movement. I was very touched to read the stories and watch the interviews with people who had run interference against the politics of National Socialism and in many cases, lost their lives because of it.
Berlin is a sprawling city with many neighbourhood centers and you can find graffiti covered urban places as quickly as you might walk past a beautiful old church or a park.
Architecturally its a big mix of periods with a lot of Modernist (old and new) cement and glass - not my bag really.
It might just be me, but I found finding what art was in what museum a bit mystifying. We went to the Alte Nationalgalerie and found a range of old master kind of stuff and a little modern art - not what we meant to find but it was interesting.
On another day we found what we were looking for at Neuen Nationalgalerie which is really lovely museum of art.
It has a wonderful mix of art from this century laid out in non-chronological order but themed and linked.
The description boards were superb and really gave a sense of meaning and context to the works of art and how they were created as statements of the politics at the time.
It provided a broader understanding of how German artists made comment through their art of what was happening in their home country.
And I always enjoy seeing art from a different perspective and culture; other peoples famous names that I might not have known.
There was lots of art to be found and a lot of Protest Art.
The Eastside gallery is 1.3 kilometres of intact wall which is run as a free open air gallery and was the one thing I enjoyed the most.
Immediately after the wall game down in 1989 artists started painting political commentary on it and it is now a mixture of old, restored and some new pieces - all really thought provoking and visually stunning.
If you're thinking of visiting, we stayed in Kreuzberg which was a lovely district in itself with lots of places to eat, drink, shop and rest.
They do say that one should travel to broaden ones perspective on life and Berlin did that for me.
