Here’s a quick post and a picture of the paintings I made for the show! I took loads of pictures on the night and they’ve all come out a bit yellow – so they need serious editing and fixing. I’ll have a selection of everyone’s work to show soon!

I’m busy getting all the work ready for the shows next week. Tomorrow my Nottingham Castle painting experience begins. I’ve planned a nice packed lunch to take with me to ease the nerves – so now I’m looking forward to tomorrow lunch time, which means by then I should be at least 3 or 4 hours into the piece. Cunning yes? I hope the distraction works!

Today I’ve been colouring in the smaller pieces and apart from the name tags I’m pretty close to the finishing line! That’s a really good feeling!

Three NEW cotton spools are now in the shop!* Lovely little ornaments ready to hang, each priced at £8. Hope you like!

* They went so quickly! I’ll have some more available soon.

I finished painting 4 new cotton spools today. They were so much fun to make last autumn/winter and made beautiful little tree decorations – added bonus. These fresh little faces will be in the shop soon so keep your eyes peeled.

I got my tickets for the Classic Thriller Season which takes over Nottingham Theatre Royal this August! HURRAH! I’m WELL excited! I also treated myself to this beautiful Orla Kiely folder – perfect for storing stray doodles… sigh, so pretty.

I bought this desk YEARS ago from a charity shop for the grand total of £3!! It’s been living in a friends basement and ever since, mainly because I could never find an easy way of getting it home via public transport and I kept forgetting about it. But as you can see I finally brought it home!! It has little legs you can screw on the bottom but for now they’re tucked away inside and I have just the top resting on my work table. It makes the table the perfect height for painting projects so I’ve nicknamed it my ‘paint station’ for now. In the past I’ve been using big books to lean on (as you can see in this older post) as an attempt to limit the back damage I keep accidentally inflicting on myself. Fingers crossed this beauty does the trick!

Below: The spring flowers are filtering their way into a lot of my doodles at the moment (but I think that was a bit obvious in the recent sketch book updates). Anyway, here are some of the beautiful flowers I’ve been enjoying and some examples of how I’ve been putting them in my pictures.

And here is a random illya picture:

It’s been a busy week and a bit and I’m sorry but this post could turn into a bit of a brute – a friendly brute though, I promise. Firstly there’s a new print in the shop! (just scraping the March deadline) Pictured above – it’s a print of a new painting I finished the other day. Based a bit on the pocket full of black cats book cover. The print measures 7 x 9 inches and is ready for framing. Priced at £10. Bargain :)

Not only is there a print but there’s also a new(ish) tote bag in the shops! Originally the Tweet Tote was exclusive to the I dress myself website but I’m pleased as punch to announce it is now available in my etsy shop too! Horray!

Last week saw the launch of Nottingham’s new SWITCH studios. It was full of painters and doodlers hijacking the freshly painted white walls. I took a couple of pictures from the night but they aren’t that great (it was dark and I was tired) – I’ll make it one of my missions to pop back when it’s quiet and snap some more. For now here are a couple of the finished piece. (The plug socket on the wall gives you a better idea at what sort of size it is)

And finally – A massive MASSIVE thank you to everyone who bought a little something from the shop this weekend as a way of donating to the Japan Tsunami Appeal. I’ve decided to donate all of the money from those sales to the cause rather than just the 50% I originally had in mind. Hope you all had a lovely weekend :)