The Painting of Frida and some Sea Glass.

This painting was a long time in the making.

Not so much the painting of it but the journey it had over a long period of time before it became my colourful little painting of Frida.

Many years ago we had a shop at St Nicholas Market in Bristol. We sold all sorts of handmade objects and one of the things we had for sale were little carved notice boards that held a little notepad. 

I liked them a lot so I took one home and for many years I used it for the family shopping list. If you look at the shape of my Frida painting, you'll see the original shape of one of these boards.

A few years ago we moved house to Devon and I saw how battered my little shopping list board had become but I still loved the shape of it so I held on to it with the plan of filling all the broken parts and repainting it one day.

So one day I decided to prepare the board with filler and gesso and I began the portrait.

You might know that my painting style these days is usually very simple and not naturalistic at all so this was a complete change for me and I enjoyed painting the detail of her features. But when it came to decorating the background, I had no inspiration to carry on so it was left on a shelf for four months. (I had to look at my social media to see how long ago it actually was!)

Then one day I was experimenting with some very bright pinks in my sketchbook, it was enough to get me to take the little Frida painting out again and finished it off with as much bright colour as I could find!

It's now living with its new owner and I'm so pleased to have had a happy ending for her!

~ ~ ~

One of the things I love to do when I'm walking on the beach is to find pieces of sea-worn glass. It's usually the days when I stop trying to find some that they seem to just pop up from nowhere!

This is my loot from a few days ago.

I love the pale aqua ones the best, they remind me of the sea.

Lovely Dartmoor in the distance.

 I hope you''re having a lovely week, I'll see you again very soon.

xx