I’ve been absent from ye olde blog lately. It’s been a busy time here in old Mapperley-topsville. Halloween’s been and gone (shocking! – no pun intended). The trick and treaters ate ALL my sweets – totally not cool. I spent most of last week either living at the cinema or buried in my paints. The painting right at the top is finished, phew! and it’s the biggest I’ve done so far so I’m really pleased with how it’s come out. As you can see there’s a handful more I’m currently working on. I’m looking forward to framing the finished pieces and who knows they might make a formal appearance in the lovely shop sometime before Christmas!

Talking of Christmas – The cards are back for sale in the shop and a new one will be joining them before the week is out. Not to forget some lovely new stocking fillers will be tagging along too – I just need a new staple gun to complete that mission.

The Makeover mission’s been a proper challenge recently but I’ll come back to that with pictures and heart wrenching tales of sighs and grumps. Until then, for those of you who have some halloween candy left over – enjoy! For those of you, like me, who don’t – Fancy a cuppa?

ps for the next 24 hours (until 11am Thursday) get yourself 20% off in my shop! use the code BLACKCATS.

pps – A little Halloween illya roar for those of you who missed it:

Here are some (very pink) snap shots of my doodle from this weekend’s “Raise the Roof” festival that was going on at Nottingham Contemporary. Sorry about the poor picture quality – I should be getting some better ones soon but I wanted to share a picture of my life size cat lady. I love doing these wall doodles!

Some new hand painted cotton spool baubles have entered the shop!

My drawings start off really scruffy and by the time I’m armed with a pen they look awful! I’ve mentioned in previous posts about how I try to be a perfectionist when it comes to doodling in sketchbooks and I find it really tricky to let my hair down, so to speak, and just draw. But it’s a really nice feeling when a picture you almost give up on  turns into something your’re really pleased with. I think what I’m trying to say is: Scruffy is good.

And now there is a new print in the shop :)

2 new paintings making their way into the shop! Both these pieces were in the recent show at the Malt Cross and are priced at £55 each. Keep your eyes peeled for more paintings up for grabs very soon!

A new print/character I’m working on at the moment. I like her tights.