New Year, New Painting Projects!

Hello, and Happy New Year!

It is ages since I wrote anything on this blog – two months! – but this is going to change. I intend to use it a lot this coming year, particularly to document one of my new painting projects.

I am going to carry on with my Essex Paths & Bridleways series, but I am also launching two new series. I think 2022 is going to be busy! So, let me tell you about them . . . .

Twelve Months on an Essex Island: If you’ve been following me for a while you will recognise that this is the third in my Twelve Months projects, following on from the Essex Wood (2016) and the Essex Field (2020). 

The new project will be about Mersea Island, just off the Essex Coast about nine miles from my home. It is connected to the mainland by a causeway, which is sometimes covered at high tide! (I definitely need to buy a tide table . . . ). I will be doing a monthly series of paintings. There is a lot of scope – the beach, the salt marshes, the sea wall, the fields and woods, the churches, the beach huts. I will also be doing another series of drawings, as I did with my Essex Field project. This time, instead of snippings I shall have findings, which I know will include shells and stones from the beach. I will record notes about what I see and hear, and the seasonal changes, and at the end there will be a little self-published book, just as there is for the Essex Wood and the Essex Field. These two previous books are both available to buy on my SHOP page – click on the menu bar above.

PAINT 7: My second painting project is going to be something completely different! I will be launching a series of little ‘lettering’ paintings . . . .  So what’s the back story on this?

• As some of you may know, I used to do a lot of calligraphy and painted lettering art. In recent years I have only continued to do very formal work, the calligraphy for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faculty Office, updating a few church remembrance books, and the odd incumbents’ list.
• For the last few months I have been mulling over the idea of some kind of work released as a limited edition at specific times of the year. The way that Imogen Ashwin (@theoldshopnorfolk on Instagram) releases her seasonal candles, and Elise Blaha Cripe (@elisejoy on Instagram) has worked through her Make36 project for each month of her 36th year, gave me all sorts of intriguing ideas.
• On January 8th I will be 67. I started thinking around this number and I thought that I could make 7 somethings and release them in batches of 7, at 7 times through the year. I went through all sorts of ideas about what the somethings might be.
• I wanted them to be quite small (postable), related to the specific times of the year (Festivals?), completely hand made (not one of my merchandise things, like the coasters), and for £67.00 to be a reasonable price.
• I remembered a lettering idea which I had used for tiny works a few times, and enjoyed a lot but had not really explored. Here are a couple of examples, both little zig-zag books.

From then on the whole project came together really quickly.

• I would use very short quotations from e e cummings
• I would make the words into a lettering ‘net’ on 6 inch square gesso panels
• I would paint seven versions of each quote, as near identical as I could
• I would frame them in simple white tray frames
• I would launch seven of these little paintings at seven times though the year.

The seven times will be:

Candlemas/Imbolc 1st February

Vernal Equinox 21st March

May Day 1st May

Summer Solstice 21st June

Lammas 1st August

Autumn Equinox 21st September

Winter Solstice 21st December

So there will be 7 Imbolc paintings, 7 Spring Equinox paintings, and so on.

The examples in the photos just use watercolour, but i will use acrylic paint, including metallic and iridescent paints, oil pastels, inks, soft pastels, gold leaf . . . .

Each painting will be £67.00 including packing and postage to any UK mainland address.

I will document PAINT 7 on this blog, on my Instagram account @sallypudneyartist with the #sallypaints7, and in my newsletter. I will be sending out an extra PAINT 7 newsletter four days before each launch, so that my lovely subscribers get a first look, and can decide whether or not they are interested.

The paintings will be for sale on a new page here on my website, accessed by clicking PAINT 7 on the menu bar above.

If you are not already a subscriber to my newsletters, and would like to hear about the PAINT 7 releases in good time, plus my regular ‘last day of the month’ round up of new paintings and exhibitions, click through to the Home page, and add your email in the box at the foot of the page, before clicking Subscribe – it’s as easy as that! And you can always unsubscribe if you get bored!

I hope you are as excited to follow along with these new projects as I am to work on them. I’ll be popping back here next week to tell you a bit more about the first Candlemas/Imbolc painting.

Stay safe, stay well! 🙂