Commission: painting work in progress

Work in progress triptych painting for PT

Seffer Studios

So I've been thinking about what souvenir artwork I'd like to buy before I leave this little island, I know I've created my own art and keepsakes but I've fallen for the charms of several local artists, including Mike and Renate Seffer. They've featured in a few of The Ritz-Carlton gallery shows and they're super talented.

Mike's high sheen resin-ed art is beautiful and unlike anything I've seen, while Renate's colour use blows me away. I'd love to own originals of both but I think a giclee print may have to suffice for now, but one day. One day. I took a trip out to Seffer Studios in West Bay and had a closer look at their art.

Neatly stacked Seffer work, the sheen of Mike's resin artwork can be seen in the left pieces.

 Four of Renate's colourful canvases - excuse the feet

A looser group of figures in this framed watery piece

 I love the colour and the organisation of this unit full of art

This is one of Renate's photos taken of her artwork in Full of Beans cafe for a show called Summer Daze, I'm particularly taken with the one on the right "96 degrees in the shade".

Sketchbook: concertina flowers

Two more pages from the concertina sketchbook, these pictures have come out a little yellow, the  Plantana planter is still a little wet in the pic too so the colours haven't fully shown. Both are acrylic and ink. The 'Table Flowers' image was inspired by Roland Richardson, an island painter from St. Martins whose amazing love of colour inspired me to get the paint out.

Sketchbook: concertina Plantana

 

More pages are starting to fill up in the concertina sketchbook, here are a few of my watercolour efforts around our condo, Plantana. I'm enjoying the 'wonkiness' of the furniture in these watercolour sketches.

Introducing: Loco

Say hello to Loco, he's exceptionally friendly and he's our Caymanian equivalent of Wilson, if you've seen Castaway you know what I mean.

While I was filling up my concertina sketchbook, I spotted this fellow and decided to enhance his features and adopt him, this way PT has some company after I leave the island. Well, say hello then.

Sketchbook: concertina beaches

Look at my amazing new sketchbook! It's a concertina design which looks like a regular sketchbook from the outside but stretches out accordion-style. I can't believe I haven't used it until now, I brought it out with me and test drove it last night at Barker's Beach while PT windsurfed.

Barker's Beach 1: towards Rum Point - pen and watercolour

Barker's blues 1 & 2 - watercolour, sand and pen

 

PT is lost / Barker's towards West Bay - watercolour and pen

 

In the above image, as you can tell from the title, PT got lost, the wind zoomed him up and away towards West Bay, he eventually abandoned his windsurf on the beach and we had to retrieve it with the jeep about half a mile further up the beach!

My sketches below, show PT battling the wind and the choppy waves until he disappeared from view, note the sketches which became a mere triangle, line and a dot (top of image), this was all I could make out of PT and his windsurf on the far horizon.

A day in the life: Bowerbird

A day in the life: Bowerbird by TheBowerBird featuring a red brooch
A floral Yumi dress, glasses, high bun and hair flowers. Bopping along to Amy Winehouse, sipping on smoothies and doodling, writing and flipping through Vogue. Not a bad first day of redundancy!

Full disclosure: I've just become hooked on Polyvore, a super east site that allows you to make moodboards in a snap. Here's a summery of my day, what I've worn, done and listened to. Also, the redundancy part, it's soooo quiet on island at the moment that I'm not working in The Gallery, just for now. Hopefully.

Rainy season is making me think of an English Autumn

Hello from my tiny island, although not as tiny as the sister islands I visited last weekend. We had a whirlwind tour of Little Cayman (airport) and Cayman Brac. It is truly incredible how those people live there, I for one already miss the shops of London town. Yes, call me materialistic, but I don't need to buy, just need to be around the new beautiful things. Sorry about that. This is Grand Cayman's East End, the rustic and idyllic end of our island. Pretty huh?

This week it's been very rainy, I feel for the tourists when it's like that, there's little else to do when it rains, this is very much an outdoor kind of place. All this precipitation has me thinking about England and the Autumnal weather I will return to in October/November and I must admit I'm pretty excited about it. Don't tell the boy!

I spotted a competition over at Zuneta, a great online beauty website who keep me informed of  seasonal make up changes, not that I ever do anything different, but I still like to know, you know? Anyway, the competition is to say how you'd spend £200 at Laura Ashley or Zuneta, so I got greedy and told them I'd spend £200 at each store, by creating the perfect Autumnal night in. I got a little carried away and created the mood-board above.

The perfect Autumnal night in, involves low lighting, a Malin & Goetz mojito candle, a rich Sjal face mask while painting my toes in Essie's 'little brown dress' and relaxing back on my Elsham Chunky Knit throw and cushions (they're called Vittorio and Henry) while re-reading one of my favourite books, The Time Traveler's Wife and nibbling on chocolate, watching the candle light flicker off those fabulous mirrors. Isn't that bird so Bowerbird?! There's still a few days to enter if you're up for it head over to Zuneta.

As I finish typing this, the sun is coming out and I can see the rainwater mistily evaporating, it's kind of beautiful in a OMG it's humid kind of way. I leave you with my favourite picture from our adventurous day in Cayman Brac last Saturday. I'm atop a rock looking out over The Bluff, a 140 foot sheer drop down to the ocean. It was a beautiful if fleeting moment and one I should remember when I next face a cold Autumnal day in London.

Summer101: gallery reshuffle and some **NEW** work-ish

It's been a little while since I last posted, and I have plenty of excuses but I don't think you want to hear them, instead I'm posting new pics (apologies for the graininess, I'm using my old ancient camera just to make sure I post SOMETHING today, better pics to follow).

We've had a pretty slow month for art sales in The Gallery, so I decided to try something new and frame some of my pen and ink illustrations to test the water with. These are cheaper than the paintings and have a crisp white matte and wooden frame, what do you think?

"Enduring Love on Seven Mile" "Reading at Smith's Cove" and "People Watching on Seven Mile Beach", all dip pen and ink on watercolour paper - hang top to bottom next to the existing paintings.