A New Project

It has been a glorious day here in Cornwall and it gave me chance to think about a new personal project that I am working on, I will need to gather some funds to see it though, so I am having a bit of a clear out of my studio and will post all the work I have available on my website in the available work menu.

For a limited period I will be welcoming offers for the paintings, and I know it is a bit alien to us to do this but I can only say yes, no or maybe …they all have guide prices, and there is very little point in them sitting face to face in my studio, whilst they are between exhibitions.

If you would like to visit me in the studio to have a flick though, please contact me via email ss@suzysharpe.co.uk

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1QWeqsN
via IFTTT

Impressions of Nature

My ideas around the ‘Observe project’ I mentioned in my last post have been taking shape,   in its simplest form it is about recording the world in which I fine myself, my day to day engagement with the landscape the flora, fauna and changing seasons.

John Virtue in conversation with Andrew Graham Dixon said “Walking and drawing…these works were a visual diary of my existence of each day, the drawings are like walking through your own life…its about mortality”…

Picasso said “Je Suis Le Cahier: I am my sketchbooks…”

I am still not entirely sure how this project will culminate but hope to make a book/journal…I will certainly be exhibiting selected pieces from the body of work in October.  At the moment most of the work is printmaking…with great enthusiasm!  I am absolutely loving playing with inks, press and foliage, exploring colour and composition and searching out new flora to make impressions from.

I will be popping a few of my smaller pieces in an online etsy shop at a special January only introductory price if you would like to have a peep.  Here are a few of my newest pieces…

 

Also it is only a few days until the end of my January Sale with 50% off I wouldn’t like you to miss out on a bargain!

 

 

 

from WordPress http://ift.tt/23oXMLm
via IFTTT

WOW £637.50 !!!

Today I had the extreme pleasure of posting 3 cheques for £212.50, one each for Compassion in World Farming, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and Mousehole Wild bird Hospital.

And just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped me to make it possible. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to everyone who bought, shared, encouraged, liked and stayed with me for the 100 days. I could not have done it without you.

Here are a few of the paintings sold in my ‘100 Things Wild’ Challenge 100 paintings in 100 days.

 

 

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1Q0FXgf
via IFTTT

2016 – Feeling inspired

I have a number of projects lined up for 2016,many of which are not fully formed in my mind at the moment.  As you may have noticed, I have an ongoing relationship with animals, wild life and the wider natural world and this  will flow through all of my work I have no doubt.

In one of these projects “Observe (or) A View From Here” (2 possible working titles) I will explore the place I call home (between Helston and Redruth in rural west ish Cornwall) and the surrounding countryside. I am considering moving house over the next couple of years and want to focus a little of my energy recording and documenting my experience of being here.  I walk most days, photographing and collecting with a strange kind of compulsion as I go, always mentally recording the changing seasons and the ebb and flow of the weather cycles, flora and fauna.  The painter John Virtue said something along the lines, that his paintings are the only record of his presence in the landscape.  I do paint and draw the landscape, but I dont feel my visual language for this has settled yet, so this is an area for my focus.  I have always photographed and made prints of objects found and will continue with this, together with gathering narratives and of course painting and drawing the birds and animals who share the space.  I have an exhibition booked at the wonderful Helston Museum in October where this project will be exhibited.

Here are a few examples of I might further explore and some of my ideas so far.

If you would like to hear of my plans as they unfold please feel free to join my mailing list  or follow my pages on Twitter or Facebook.

I hope you have a very happy, peaceful and creative 2016

Best wishes

Suzy

 

 

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1PfC42d
via IFTTT

Handmade Christmas

Bethany has been writing about the handmade and Christmas and included my cards in her blog :)

Bethany Robinson

So… I LOVE handmade gifts as you may have guessed. In the last two years I have experimented a little with my Christmas gifts because I feel mass produced items aren’t always the most personal or best quality gifts, heres what I discovered!

In 2014 I found myself surrounded by a lot of beautiful handmade items because I did a lot of fairs. So naturally this gave me the opportunity to buy lots of handmade gifts.

In 2015 I made most of my gifts myself, ironically I was doing more fairs this year, which ill come back to later, but i felt it would give me the opportunity to give more personalised quality gifts.

So 2014…

I bought a selection of beautifully crafted items, from small things like a mulled wine syrup and small food based gifts from truro market to make up a hamper. To larger gifts like jewellery…

View original post 373 more words

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1PseCmA
via IFTTT

The End is Nigh….100 Things Wild Charity Challenge

Well, only nine days to go and 5 wild things to paint.  I have lots of paintings left in my shop…I think I may have flooded my little market corner of my market!!!  But, all is well I will have raised over £400 for Charity which is entirely positive and a wonderful thing to be able to do.

So what next? 100 days is rather too long a challenge for me and I have found it difficult to remain engaged in the idea.  I will not be repeating the how many can I paint challenge enough is enough :).  In many ways I feel that this could be a device I  use to prevent a deepening engagement with my practice…or an enjoyable distraction.

Anyway if you would like to see, share or of course purchase any of my challenge paintings they can be found in my shop and will remain there at least until the 9th December, the last day of the challenge.

If you have followed me, thank you very much for staying with me.

One of my Hares from day 90…

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1OAz9Dh
via IFTTT

Featured Artist: Suzy Sharpe joins The Compassion Collective

Originally posted on The Compassion Collective:

We are extremely pleased to officially introduce our newest artist to join The Compassion Collective. So please welcome Suzy Sharpe…

We were really excited when Suzy got in touch with us via Twitter through her shared support of our favourite charity Compassion in World Farming. She has very generously let us sell gorgeous cards and prints of some of her farm animal pictures and a rather lovely hare too!

Here’s what Suzy says about why she wants to be part of the Compassion Collective:

“I was delighted to be able to donate my images to the Compassion Collective because they support charities that are very close to my heart and can reach a wider audience than I can.  It is important for me to use my work wherever possible to support charities, particularly those which focus on animal welfare and protection.“

View original 204 more words

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1MKY6N1
via IFTTT

Poetry of Animals and back to my challenge

I feel like I have been away…but I haven’t, I had a little break from the Challenge whilst getting ready for our exhibition at Morvah Schoolhouse Gallery.

We had poetry readings, music, great company and very interesting conversations at the preview and it seems to have been a very successful exhibition for everyone who took part.

Here are a few photos of the show…

Click to view slideshow.

So now it is back to my 100 Things Wild Challenge.   Here are a few of the paintings still available all of them will remain at £50 until the end of the challenge and 50% of all the funds raised will go to my 3 chosen charities Compassion in World Farming, Mousehole WIldbird Hospital and Cornwall Wildlife Trust.  Please click here to browse the available paintings  and here if you would like to join my mailing list to see the paintings first as they are created 

Click to view slideshow.

 

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1lijjna
via IFTTT

The Poetry of Animals – Morvah Schoolhouse Gallery

A few months ago I was delighted to be asked to take part in an exhibition with Rowena Scotney and Michelle Cowmeadow at Morvah Schoolhouse Gallery.  We set up tomorrow and the show is open to the public from Thursday, with music and nibbles on Sunday 1st November.

As the woodlouse replied to the poet, ‘Can I close dead ears against the rush and resonance of things? …I am likewise the created, – I the equipoise of thee’.

From ‘The Poet and the Woodlouse’ by A. C. Swinburne (c.1904)

The exhibition is a poetic celebration of animals, both as metaphor for the human condition (as expressed in the many poems which inspired the artworks here) and for the creatures themselves, with ideas explored around experience, curiosity, journeying, growth, transience, life and death. Some of the artworks also communicate the delicate balance and bond between human and animal and how this is disrupted via threat and survival in nature.

From the universal to the tiny insect, with seriousness and with humour, the exhibition aims to celebrate the cosmic life force and energy which suffuses us all, unravelling, as the poet Mary Oliver expresses in ‘Wild Geese’, ‘[our] place in the family of things’.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1LWRwiu
via IFTTT

Charity Challenge – week 1 an insight!

This is a round up of the emails sent out to my mailing list with a little insight into the way my mind has been working day by day….possibly not the best thing to share sometimes.  

I started on the day the Badger culls recommenced so Badgers where everywhere.  It therefore seemed fitting to start with Badgers.    I find it difficult to paint one at a time I painted 3.  This raised an interesting issue, does painting 3 Badgers constitute 1 Wild Thing or 3…?

 

Day 2

I pondered the question and decided that all the paintings need to be of a different wild thing to count towards the 100! 

Inspired by my trip over the summer to Skokholm Island.  Skylarks song seemed to be all around us at times, you can read their wonderful blog here.  Sadly they are in decline due to the changes in land management and farming practice, you more about them from the RSPB here.

Day 3

It only took a couple of days for me to be feeling confined by the constraints I had set myself.  In trying to rationalise them in my own mind I stated that “I am trying to work a little more steadily and pace myself ( ha ha I am not great at that!).  Instead of making as many paintings as I can in a day.  I am reminding myself that this challenge is about allowing myself time for consideration and establishing structure as well creating 100 paintings in 100 days! “

My painting was of a little Nuthatch seen in a local nature reserve called Pendarves Woods it is wonderfully managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust you can find out more by clicking here.

 

Day 4

A Snipe with amazing legs! They visit us at a very beautiful lake not far from my home. Stithians Lake is managed by the South West Lakes Trust  with the help of a Cornwall Bird Watching Preservation Society warden which means that it is fully equipped with some very well positioned hides.  Many of the birds I will paint have probably been viewed here.  

 

Day 5

A Shoveler for day 5.  I first saw one of these extraordinary birds at Slimbridge Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust  where I had an exhibition a few years ago.  

 

Day 6

I took a trip around Mountsbay with  Marine Discover Penance  it was a belated birthday present for my Mum, it was fantastic, if you would like to see a few of the photos from the day  please check out my facebook page

Nothing like the vastness of the sea a few Harbour porpoises and a chat with my Mum to bring all my questions into focus!!! So now what should I do about all these thoughts, I am committed to this Challenge so how can I make it more useful?

Now  less than 1 week in I am questioning the whole idea of this challenge in terms of my own creativity (it was inevitable that this would happen…I am always like this) All the usual What is the purpose of life/art questions washing around my mind!!!

I finished my painting before I set off just in case, it was a pair of magpies

 

Day 7

By now the pace of 1 a day was killing me!!!  

In July last year took a kayaking qualification with Hayle Canoe Club and one lovely evening the sky was full of these elegant and beautiful birds and their close relatives.  I couldn’t just paint one of them!  

Day 8

So I upped the pace…a lot!  I had a bit of a painting marathon, October and November are looking incredibly busy so I thought I should try to get a bit ahead of myself over the next few days.

 In light of my change of pace,  I decided to changes my self defined rules too.  I only sent out 1 painting though because scanning, putting on website etc takes almost as long as the paintings.

Also thanks to my Dad for reminding me, I included here for one of the Radio 4 Tweets of the day for you too….

 

Today Day 9

I am off to be graduated from Falmouth University later it is over a year since I completed my Master of Art in Illustration Authorial Practice (with distinction :) !!!) I am not sure where the time has gone but it may be this acting as a catalyst for my slight mental crisis around the charity challenge (more on this next time). 

My email went out an early today with the paintings made yesterday and today,  I think I had defined a new challenge…. how many can I paint in 24 hours!  Once I get everything set up though I do work quickly and because this is pure observation, working from photographs that I already have I am able to get a lot done in a day.  I cant sustain this for any period of time though, as I either run out of images or inspiration or it starts to feel like factory work and a little pointless…especially when the paintings have a price tag.  Funny how adding a monetary value always devalues the meaning/purpose/point of things.  Or is that just me?

I changed the rules slightly today too, to reflect my thoughts over the last few days and to keep it all simple.  Now all the paintings, drawings and sketches will be £50 including (UK) P & P with 50% to go to the 3 charities, hopefully they will be affordable (I always relate affordable to a tank of fuel for some reason!) , I will cover my costs and we will raise a little money for charity.  

All the paintings, drawings and sketches so far can be found here .  Please feel free to share my emails and facebook posts far and wide.

Many thanks

Suzy

 

from WordPress http://ift.tt/1O0L3Z1
via IFTTT