Kirrily Hammond

Another artist I really admire is Kirrily Hammond. Her paintings are evocative and well beyond her years... capturing the mood of that short amount of time between day and night: twilight. The urban and rural landscapes are barely visible in the dusk, but for me they have a special significance as they remind me of the many driving holidays I had with my family as a child, driving home at dusk when the lights are shimmering in the distance - we used to call it 'fairyland'. In some of the 'Gippsland twilight' series you get the feeling of driving through the rain, a foggy windscreen blurring the view through the window, the Australian diamond-shaped yellow street signs glaring at you - and I love the way they are so atmospheric and Turneresque.

Albion St 2

Albion St

Gippsland twilight 10

Gippsland twilight 12

Gippsland twilight 21

Gippsland twilight 24

Gippsland twilight 27

Gippsland twilight 28

Gippsland twilight 34

Gippsland twilight 42

all images from Kirrily Hammond

Celia Birtwell

Celia Birtwell started out studying a textile design course at Salford School of Art in 1956 before meeting fashion designer Ossie Clark with whom she lived and worked, dressing the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Hendrix and Twiggy amongst others. She has recently designed new collections for Topshop and John Lewis, in clothing and homewares. Most excitingly, she was the subject of many David Hockney paintings!

images from Celia Birtwell, V&A and John Lewis

etsy card price reduction

I've reduced the price of my cards being sold on etsy to $2.90 US each, which is around £2.00 (60 pence cheaper than previously)!

the best kind of holiday home

Just stumbled upon this holiday shack in Berry NSW, one of my favourite Australian towns, on the South Coast of NSW. The position right in the middle of the bush is just where I'd like to be right now!
Have a great weekend, whatever you're up to - the weather here in the UK is going to be perfect all weekend so I'm going to make the most of it! (i don't have a holiday shack to go to unfortunately)...

from domain

Beverley Budgen

Silver Sugar Basin
Beverley Budgen is an Australian artist based in Brisbane. Her paintings are captivating and so inspiring! She paints the traditional subjects of still life, interiors and landscapes in a light and fresh style, reminiscent of Matisse, Bonnard and Grace Cossington Smith. I love the domestic interiors - a moment captured in time. Her Cairns Verandah and Paradisio remind me of Margaret Olley's early paintings of her mother's home in Brisbane. Her interiors are very busy with slightly flattened perspective, creating a 'naive' feel to them. She has also painted some European landscapes capturing seaside villages and the winter countryside. Beverley is a great painter and a lovely person. The following is some wording from her website:

Her engaging themes reflect, like many women artists before her, the richness of her surroundings, the love of family, travels to distant ports and palaces, with dashes of the magic found in Mother Nature.

According to The Sunday Mail (Brisbane, Australia): “This Brisbane artist, whose continuing love affair with atmospheric buildings and places around the world, takes us from medieval France to the battlements of London, from the heart of rural England to the blinding light and crumbling facades of outback Australia, delighting the eye. Beverley Budgen’s mixed media works in the Gallerie Baguette Facades exhibition, Brisbane 1985, capture the flavour and charm of the eccentric hotel at 9 Rue Git le Coeur, Paris. The lines are loose, fluid, suitably sensual negligee for the establishment which borders on the deliciously seedy. Louche cats lounge on curvaceous iron balconies; doors close tantisingly at the tread of an approaching foot, the claustrophobic mix of wallpapers in the cramped foyer is unmistakably vulgar and de trop. Even the colours in which Budgen paints the ageing structures are perfectly apt." -art critic Kate Collins.

Thoughts about the Art of Beverley Budgen.

Beverley Budgen's art displays a very feminine, surprisingly childlike delight in the moment, both in scenes of the everyday - a Shelley teaset on a table, a bowl of fruit on a red lacquer chest, a jardiniere in the kind of room in which Matisse might have lived - and in landscapes at home and abroad, from the sight of a skiff on Loch Insh to a view of the picture filling Palace of Four Winds in Jaipur.  Her paintings are the bright and joyful snapshots of a fresh, inexhaustible world taken by someone who has lived deeply and noticed much.

Christopher Greaves - author of The Chalk Giant

Paradisio

Cairns Verandah
The green cane sofa appears in many paintings - it's gorgeous!

Swoon

Orrefors and Orange

Red Lacquer Chest
There's something very Matisse about this painting

Sandy Cove Ireland

Patch of Sunlight

This is one of my favourites - grey storm clouds approaching, with just a patch of sun on the hillside and buildings

Hungerford Bridge London

Foggy Fields

Smeatons Pier
all images from Beverley Budgen

red

As you may or may not know, I love red! Whether it's red walls, red crockery or red sheets, I love them all! These red rooms from Elle Decor are tastefully done and have a good mix of other colours to offset the red.