Festival Flyer

Well May is fast approaching and with it the Open House season. This year my work will be in two new venues and this first one is part of the Dyke Road trail and I'm at 53, Kingsley Road in Brighton. It's my friend Joy Fox's house ( queen of the button jewellery scene ! ) Her house is a lovely Victorian one on three floors with wonderful far reaching views over Brighton at the back. Other exhibitors will be Jonathan Alden; art boxes, Tina Balmer ; paintings, Carol Butler; hand embroidery, Joss Davis; ceramics, Judy Dwyer; Dangerous Dolls, Sarah Lock; painted lamps and shades, Peter Neuner; wooden sculptures, Victor Stuart Graham; driftwood boats, and Jo Sweeting; sculpture. Joy will also be showing her new textile pieces made of felted wool.

The house for brochure purposes is called the Artful Fox and so some of us are including some foxy pieces ... as a natural development of my cats and dolls here is a sneak preview of my contribution ... they are all  approximately 7 inches high, fimo bodied, button jointed figures , dressed and sporting  wired and brushed felt tails !

Fennella Fox

Fennella is joined by Rita ( they both wear vintage lace bloomers ) and Rita has soft red leather boots ( Fennella's are brown velvet. ) 

Here come the boys ... Oscar on the left and Arnold on the right.

Oscar sports a blue flowered waistcoat with pearl buttons, a wool check coat and velvet breeches. Arnold wears a kingfisher blue silk velvet suit, paisley waistcoat with glass buttons and a flower in his button hole.

They all get a little work with the paintbrush ...

 

As well as my foxy friends I shall be showing my oil flower paintings and some large garden embroideries. Just so there is no confusion I am under my proper name of Lesley Buckingham at this venue and all my fairy friends are going to be showing in a house in Hove under the name of Betty Bib. This will be the home of the Cherry Picked For You website that I talked about in a previous post ... more of that next time ! Happy Spring days in the meantime !

New fairies

Have recently got back from Thailand where I fell in love with the bowls of floating flowers the hotel regularly refreshed. What colour and attention to detail - just my kind of thing !

People often ask if I get inspired in my work by going away to the Far East and of course it is all wonderfully stimulating but I think that fairies seem so quintessentially English and all my other influences like afternoon tea and gardens are also so rooted here that I have to say that, no I'm not particularly, though I'm sure that all the colour soaks in somewhere. 

This Christmas tree-like Buddhist shrine does though share a passing resemblance to some of my things !

And here is a green fairy to prove it ! 

I have been making some new fairies with the thought of the May festival coming up. These

little ladies come in a box with their name in the lid and are £18 each.

I have embroidered the net of their dresses on the machine and then embellished them with sequins bought in Thailand. 

The newest of my girls are these 'folky' fairies. They are made from cotton ribbon, silk organza wings and their hair is made of silk too. They also come in a box and are £15. All featured fairies are approximately 8cms high. I am particularly pleased with their long socks !

Oops !

Well at last I have managed to hobble up to my studio and make a post ... slipped own the stairs at home three weeks ago and broke a bone in my foot ! Jolly painful at the time but since then it has been mostly frustrating as first I spun around on crutches ( literally ! ) and then I mastered the art of manoeuvering  up two steps which got me into Brian's studio where I camped out for two weeks and now crutch free I can hop up the garden path back to my own patch and very nice it is to be back ! For just a very small bone I have a rather large cast which is coming off tomorrow and I can't wait ...

I must say the perks to having to slow down or even stop altogether have been to discover the delight of scoffing sweets on the sofa whilst watch Deal or No Deal - a late afternoon habit which I must be prepared to quit soon . The pretty petit fours below were given to me at Christmas by a friend who hand made them herself - I meant to put them up in the last missive and forgot. Have also caught up on some reading and have been much entertained by Mapp and Lucia by E F Benson, South Riding by Winifred Holtby ( a classic that I've long been meaning to read ) and Moby Dick by Herman Melville - another hefty read but well worth it.

Had my longest walk on the week end and bought these treasures in a junk shop. I love Honiton ware with it's lively little spots and stripes and this hand dyed ribbon poking out from it will be put to good use in making some fairy skirts.

Now I must confess life hasn't all been about languishing and snacking - once I got myself set up in my old spot in the other studio I managed to get back in to some painting and found I'd loosened up a little in the time in between. There is a fine line between lively painting and it just looking a mess and then I always have to stop myself from bering too literal and yet I want to be true to what is in front of me - all very absorbing and frequently frustrating stuff. I'm painting in oils by the way and rather like the time you have to allow for layers to dry a little before applying the next layer - it curbs my tendency to keep on going when I should step back from it and take stock. 

This painting of gerberas is 8 inches square - I'm working my way up to bigger pieces as there are even more problems to juggle with as you go up in scale - composition being one of the biggest for me ... I'm enjoying the jewel like quality you get with this size - it's scary to start something bigger !

The winter jasmine in a slip cup is 9x7 inches.

  The anemone in a Honiton vase is 7.5 inches square and I felt a had a bit of a breakthrough with the surface of the canvas in this one - I fell the the paint has got a more brilliant quality.

This the one I'm working on now and will post it up when it's finished.

I rather like the very simple sketchy beginning but am not brave enough to leave it there and call it naive !

This last one is one of the series that I did early last year and having had the space to look at it again I have continued to work on it with a little more confidence ... how strange that you can think a piece is finished and then see it as flat and lifeless after an interval and fresh eye. I think Bonnard was known for never feeling a piece was finished and touching it up even when it was hung on somebody's wall !

Lacecap in glass 7x5 inches.

One last thing before I go is that I have recently joined a gift website called cherrypicked for you  it's got lots of lovely work on it and it will be building up it's numbers of  artists this year as it is relatively new, so do check it out.

Time out of the studio

And here are those fairy pies - well rather gnome pies ... ( he's there just to show the scale and his olde worlde charm. ) These little mini pies actually looked like mushrooms with their round toppings. They are yummily made with a shortbread pastry which I recommend you try as everyone wants to know the recipe when they've eaten one. 

You mix 4 oz caster sugar into 12 oz plain flour then rub in 8 oz butter and keep on going until the mixture comes together ... then just roll out - I tend not to put a whole lid on the pie

as it is rich and I think just a cut out shape keeps it all a bit lighter and less calorific too !

Moving on to a couple of wintery scenes taken over the Downs during the last batch of snow - it had just started to melt but the remnants of this heavy frost was quite magical. Just waiting with bated breath  for this next forecasted snowfall ... at least we have pies in the larder

should we get snowed in.

And so I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and thank you for all your support and lovely e mails since I've got back to my blogging. My  New Years Resolution is to keep up the blog and make lots of nice work to post up on it !

Fairy tree and well dressed cats

It's time to hang fairies on twigs and let them float , twinkle and do their fairy thing !

These ones are hanging around in the studio waiting for homes to go to. 

I did promise cats in dresses and here they are ... 3 inches tall , they come in a box and are 

£16 including postage.

This last feline fairy is a commission from a lady who wants to give it to her daughter for her tree and measures 5 inches high. Am planning to re-open my Etsy shop in the next few days and will have some felt mice on there - packed with English lavender and  stocking fillers at £6.

Hope all your Christmas preparations are in full swing ... I'm personally looking forward to de camping from the studio to the kitchen and making fairy sized mince pies ...