One day I'll have a magnificant studio.

I am in serious need of a new studio. Today has been frustrating because there's so little room to move around in. I dream of space........lots of it!

Sunshine at last!

It's South of France weather and the colours on the canvas reflect this.
I'm working on two paintings for the Summer Exhibition.
One is leaning against the wall in the studio. I can see it wherever I stand in the room. It needs more work but I need more time to study it.
I have started working on a smaller canvas and already my palette has changed in response to the sunshine outside. The shift to bright, vibrant colours is liberating and the marks with the palette knife become freer and confident. I'm thinking of the studio in France where I will be in a few months time but right now it's good to be in Wales with the sun shining.

Driving west

From time to time I take paintings from Cardiff to St Davids Studio Gallery in Pembrokeshire. The drive takes in this stretch of road. It's almost always deserted and a great place to stop for a moment to just gaze at the sea.

St Davids Studio Gallery, Nun Street, St Davids has been showing my work since 2004. The gallery carries a selection of my work which changes throughout the year.

Thoughts of Montcuq

Hill Village. Oil on canvas 36x26cms

When I answer the phone this evening I hear a french voice and I'm immediately back in the village. I listen hard as he tells me the news. I want to know everything. The days are getting warmer he says and I now feel it won't be long before I am back. I tell him the paintings are on show in Cardiff and he can see them on the gallery website. He knows these paintings almost as well as me. He called in most days and took a look as I was working on them. The call ends but the images of Montcuq and long, hot sunny days linger.

All The Things You Are

All The Things You Are is currently on show at the Albany Gallery Cardiff until 6th March.

Cardiff Life is running a full page spread of this painting. It's in the current issue - out on Saturday. It was good to pick up a copy in the restaurant over lunch with my family in Cardiff Bay and see it there. I think they have a made a great job of displaying it and of course it's a good advertisement for my work. Very happy with that!!

Old friends

What an amazing thing.... I've had a letter from a girl I knew when I lived in Rumney. We were young, our children very small and we became friends. Our lives revolved around toddlers and babies and an assortment of pets. She made collages using wallpaper. She would send for books of wallpaper through the post. I was painting in oils. One day we took our paintings on a bus to a meeting of Cardiff University Arts Group. They had a system of artists lending their work to the university to hang there for a year. I remember I lent two - one chosen by the student representative to hang in the student lounge and the other by the Psychology Department. Such good memories. We both moved with our families to different parts of South Wales and the link was lost- until now! No longer girls, for certain, but I bet we still have art in common. She has traced me through the gallery!

Gorky, De Stijl and Cy Twombly

We went to the Tate on Saturday; walking across the bridge from St Pauls, dodging the crowds and then entering another world - of painters from the past. Arshile Gorky first and then Van Doesburg. It's not possible to take it all in but the images stay and prompt thoughts that linger and make sense. Cy Twombly is another matter - just a floor above are his Bacchus paintings. I'm thinking about them as I sit and drink coffee, saving them for another time. More exciting today is seeing my small grandsons run endlessly up to the top of the ramp in the Turbine Hall and run full pelt back down again . Simple pleasures!