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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 12 December’s Shining Star

Decembers-Sining-Star-Framed-For-Web

December’s Shining Star, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available

What other flower could I possibly do for December but the wonderful hellebore. When everything else in the garden is looking pretty dull these little fellows pop up and show us their exquisite beauty. And there are so many different varieties all with their own special charms. For me this little plant really is the shining star of December. I decided to use resistad (a colourless resist) instead of gutta on these guys so as not to overwhelm their delicate petals. What do you think? 

I apologise for the poor quality photo today. I finished painting too late to take a photo in daylight.

I’ve really enjoyed my little 12 day project again this Christmas. It’s made me think a lot about the seasons and I’ve had a few technical challenges along the way. I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the results and I look forward to seeing some of you over the coming year.

Best wishes,

Steph

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 11 November’s Indoor Imitation

Novembers-Indoor-Imitation-Framed-For-Web

November’s Indoor Imitation, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available

I felt the need for more flowers today. It’s something I want to practice as I find composition difficult with flowers. Although there wasn’t much I could find that blooms in November outside that inspired me so I’ve gone for an indoor imitation. I’ve never had much luck with growing amaryllis myself but both my mother and my mother-in-law have grown some beautiful ones in the past. Such a lovely way to brighten up the house on dark winter days.

Last day tomorrow….

Best wishes,

Steph

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 10 October’s Cornish Dreams

The-Loe,-Porthleven,-Cornwall-Framed-for-Web

October’s Cornish Dreams, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

For half term in October 2015 we took a trip down to Porthleven on the Southern Cornish coast. We stayed in a lovely cottage right on the seafront and were blessed with great weather. Quite out of character for me I was motivated to keep up my running training and ran around the edge of ‘The Loe’ Cornwall’s largest freshwater lake which is separated from the sea by the shingle bank of Loe Bar. I got hopelessly lost but was rewarded by this wonderful view of The Loe and the hills beyond. I loved Porthleven and am definitely dreaming of a Cornish October 2016…..

Best wishes,

Steph

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 9 September’s Apple Abundance

September's-Apple-Abundance Framed For Web

September’s Apple Abundance, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

Having done the plums yesterday, I couldn’t resist a little more fruit! The apple harvest from the tiny trees in our garden is never likely to result in the composition of an apple blues but provides enough for a few crumble and pie treats and they look so attractive when they are on the tree.

 

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 8 August’s Plum Blues

August's-Plum-Blues-Framed-For-Web

August’s Plum Blues, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

Happy New Year everyone!

A few years back when I didn’t have quite so many jobs and had a bit more time on my hands, we used to have an allotment with a plum and a greengage tree. Come harvest time I used to rope the children into a bit of character building hard labour. They were ok with this until the year of the bumper crop when we picked over 80lbs of plum and greengages. They actually didn’t complain too much about the harvesting, it was the rather heavy featuring of plums in our diet for the next few weeks which pushed them over the edge and led to the composition of ‘The Plum Blues’. This went something like…

Woke up one morning, there were hundreds of plums, We plucked and plucked ’em till we bled from our thumbs, And it took aaaaages and aaaaaages to pick those greengages….. 

OK, so the songwriting needs some work…….

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 7 July’s Wonderful Weed

July's-Perfect-Peacock-Framed-For-Web

July’s Wonderful Weed, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

Apologies to all you buddleia fans out (and I know there are hundreds of beautiful varieties) but the bog standard purple one is firmly a weed in my book. But what a weed it is! It seems to be able to grow almost anywhere (I’ve seen it growing out of the side of a building) and it has a magnetic attraction for butterflies. Particularly the splendid peacock who obviously sees something in it that I don’t…..

Painting the buddleia on silk was another challenge for me. If I had used gutta it would have ended up all line and no colour so I decided to paint it without. I painted each petal separately, drying with the hairdryer before doing the adjacent one. I then used a colourless resist to stop the background from flowing over the finished flower.

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 6 June’s Jolly Sailor

June's-Red-Admiral-Framed-for-Web

June’s Jolly Sailor, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

There’s nothing that heralds the beginning of summer like the emergence of the butterflies and the Red Admiral is one of my favourites. Seeing one always reminds me what wonderfully rich and beautiful flora and fauna we have in the UK. Hope you like my little sailor…

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 5 May’s Bluebell Bonanza

May-Bluebells-Framed-For-Web

May’s Bluebell Bonanza, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

 

Those of you who have seen some of my previous work will know I can’t resist a bluebell wood. It’s one of those very British phenomena that takes my breath away every time. The joy of those intense carpets of blue is something to look forward to every May. In this case the bluebells weren’t really in a wood but on the side of a sunny hillside in Whichford in the Cotswolds.

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 4 – April’s Tiny Trumpets

April-Daffodils-Framed-for-Web

April’s Tiny Trumpets, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

April is my birthday month and therefore the best…..obvs! Everything springs into life and I particularly love to see all the bright colour from bulbs. These tiny little trumpets are called Narcissus Bulbocodium and are so delicate, yet you find carpets of them in Windsor Great Park.

Stay tuned to find out where my crazy mind will take us tomorrow….

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 3 March’s Magnificent Magnolias

March-Magnolias-Framed-For-Web

March’s Magnificent Magnolias, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

Ok so F.C. has been and you’ve had the cold turkey buffet, now it’s time to think about March and what it has in store for us. And yes as promised……it’s not birds….

March is the birthday month of the lovely and very long suffering Mr Stephanie Gay Silk Artist and back in March 2015, we went for a birthday treat to beautiful Valley Gardens in Windsor Great Park. The magnolias were truly magnificent and I clicked away with the camera non stop. I think I did take one of Mr Gay too…..

Will it be birds, flowers or something else tomorrow….?

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 2 February’s Noisy Woodpecker

February-Woodpecker-Framed-For-Web

February’s Noisy Woodpecker, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

Happy Boxing Day! Today I’m looking ahead to February.

February is the time when the greater spotted woodpeckers start to announce their presence and find a mate by drumming, usually on dead and resonant timber. We had local resident a few years ago who discovered that he could sound altogether more impressive by drumming on our TV aerial. It certainly got our attention but I hope he didn’t end up with the most awful headache…..

As you can tell birds are a favourite subject matter for me but it won’t be all birds this time, I promise!

See you tomorrow.

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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The Twelve Months of Christmas – Day 1 January’s Frosty Morning

January-Frosty-Blackbird-Framed-for-Web
January’s Frosty Morning, Original Silk Painting, Framed size 30 x 30 cm

£95 including P&P – Limited Edition Prints Available – Buy Now

Happy Christmas! Hope you are having a lovely day. As promised I am undertaking a slightly different project for the twelve days of Christmas this year. Each day I will be looking ahead to the months of the next year starting, of course, with January.

Sometimes January can seem a hard slog compared with the excitement of December. It’s back to work and there’s all those New Year’s resolutions to uphold…. We need something to lift our hearts and I hope January will deliver at least one or two of those beautiful, sunny, frosty mornings where the sound of the birds singing fills us with joy.

I’ve never tried painting frost on silk before so I found this quite a technical challenge. I hope you like it.

Best wishes,

Stephanie

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Duck and Bollard – Maidenhead and Me

Duck and Bollard-Framed-for-Web

 

 

 

 

 

Duck and Bollard, Original Silk Painting, Mounted and framed in white overall size 60 x 80 cm

I was surprised, delighted and honoured to be awarded 1st prize in the Maidenhead Civic Society art competition ‘Maidenhead and Me’ for my painting ‘Duck and Bollard’. Here’s me receiving my prize from Home Secretary the Rt Hon Theresa May MP.

prizegiving and launch of Maidenhead and Me art competition exhibition, organised by Civic Society, Bovilles, Enjoy Maidenhead and Nicholsons Centre supported by Baylis Trust and Advertiser.
Theresa May will be opening the exhibition and presenting the prizes. Page of pics of presentations and general shots of exhibition.
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Operation Wallacea

Sea-Turtles-Framed-For-WebSea Turtles, Original Silk Painting, 60 x 80 cm

 

Thanks so much to everyone who has visited me at Reading Contemporary Art Fair, Henley Arts Trail and Caversham Arts Trail over the last few weeks and welcome to new email subscribers 🙂

My son Elliot, who is 16, is working with a charity called Operation Wallacea. Operation Wallacea is a network of academics from European and North American universities, who design and implement biodiversity and conservation management research programmes. Over the next year Elliot and 17 other 16 and 17 year olds from his school aim to raise £2,600 each for the charity and in May next year they will travel to Mexico to work with conservation biologists in two areas to survey local flora and fauna. The aim is to gather data which will enable the scientists to gain UN funding to secure the future of endangered ecosystems.

I am very keen to support the work of this charity both in the valuable work they do to preserve endangered species but also in the work to raise the awareness of environmental issues in young people and the opportunities they offer to get involved. With this in mind I have painted this picture of Sea Turtles (one of the species that the students will be working with next year) which will be raffled at Art on the Street on the 13th June 2015. Tickets will be priced at £2 each and all proceeds will go to Operation Wallacea.

I am also selling limited edition prints of the painting. These are priced at £35 for a 30 x 40 cm mounted print and £55 for a 40 x 50 cm. All proceeds from the sale of prints will go to the charity. Please click here if you would like to purchase a print.

Do come and visit me at Art on the Street in Maidenhead on the 13th June where I will have all my new work on display as well as doing silk painting demonstrations and running around like a crazy woman running a painting competition for Art on the Street artists! There will be:

  • Over 100 artists exhibiting their work
  • Two stages running a full programme of musical entertainment
  • Workshops and demonstrations throughout the day
  • A street food village
  • My son selling raffle tickets!!

If you would like to enter the raffle but won’t be able to make it on the day, please get in touch – contact me.

 

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Maidenhead and Me

On Saturday I was delighted to be awarded second prize in the inaugural ‘Maidenhead and Me’ art competition run by Maidenhead Civic Society. Artists were requested to produce work depicting what Maidenhead means to them. I love living in Maidenhead and one of the main reasons is that although I have all the amenities of city living on my doorstep including great transport links I can also walk from my house and be out in the country within a few minutes. I painted this view which shows the proximity of Maidenhead to the beautiful Berkshire countryside.

The prizes were presented by the Right Honourable Theresa May MP which was a special honour.