I forgot to write the Blog yesterday, partly because I forget that it was Monday but also I was so engrossed in editing my book. The mammoth task is reducing in size but when I'm finished I'll have to check everything again(and then again.) 

Perhaps this shouldn't be called Isolation Artist Blog any longer as we're not so isolated now. The roads are extremely busy, the village green and beach is full of people and it's nowhere near as quiet as it was during April. I felt very sad today as the annual Exhibition of the Society of Women Artists, at the end of September each year at the Mall Galleries, London was cancelled today. This is a wonderful exhibition, opened by our patron, Princess Michael of Kent. She looks at every piece of art in the Exhibition, which I find amazing. Two years ago she was delayed as there was huge traffic jam on the Mall. So she got out of her chauffeured car and walked down the Mall with several body guards so that we wouldn't have to wait too much longer.

Today's painting is "Birds at the table" and is part of a series painted in acrylic on gesso panel. I've worked really hard with this series and feel that I'm now in the swing of painting in a different medium and it's been lovely to have so much positive feedback. One of these paintings went off to live in Gloucester on Saturday.

See you next Monday - I'll attempt to get straight with the days! 

I realise I haven't written anything here for 6 days and in the meantime life has moved on slightly. Now we're not so isolated as we were for several months during late March to May. It seems to be a slightly confused regime with bubbles and other arrangements but it's good to make the most of it. Today I met some friends on the Village Green and we got take away coffee sitting 2 metres apart. Not so easily done in the rain but let's cross that bridge when we get there.

My work load has been greatly increased this week as Galleries are opening again and yesterday I received a PDF of my book laid out in it's entirety. This is so exciting and overwhelming as I have additions to make to almost every page. Having painted many enthusiastic colour charts and inspiring themes I now need to add some more explanations. This is a nice reminder of the world I inhabit in my head and it's wonderful to have an Editor to ask all those questions so that I can share that world more easily with our readers.

So now each day I flit between the Studio (as I'm in full painting flow at the moment) and the writing room. I reward myself with some painting when I've done a decent amount of writing. This is working very well albeit quite tiring as I've also started doing yoga/pilates every morning for 45 minutes as I felt I was getting rather lazy in that department.

Before I began writing here this evening I had a disco in the studio - listening to Yazoo singing various versions of "Situation" - one of my favourite songs as it's so energetic and full of life. I remember seeing Alison Moyet perform in London around 1985 and marvelling at her fantastic voice. 

For the moment I've decided to write the blog once a week and do this on a Monday - so that those of you who follow it will have a set day. I realise I can't do "everything" and will be able to keep it fresh by writing once a week. So I'll see you on Monday.

The painting today is Turquoise Bird or Blue Bird. 

It is grey and drizzly outside today. The first day without endless sunshine that we may have hoped would never end. I haven't written here for 5 days due to the the hot weather and being consumed by painting.

It's June already, which I find almost unbelievable as I remember in March, at the beginning of lockdown thinking that 3 weeks seemed a very long time. I've just started a new series of articles for the Artist magazine. I had a mental block for many weeks and searched inside my "jack in the box" head for ideas but there were none. Well there were, they were just waiting to be revealed at the right time. On Monday I looked at the list, which comprises of 12 articles, and suddenly I had so many ideas. Yet again my impatience didn't serve me very well.

"Everything comes to he who waits"

For me this brings to mind the following

Sunshine
Live in Surrey - during the 1970's I used to watch "The Good Life" and observed that they lived in Surbiton in Surrey. I had no idea what Surbiton was like and had never been there but I decided that I wanted to live in Surrey. And from 1990 I lived there for 25 years
A walled garden - where I live now, part of the garden is walled and such a fantastic space
Return to the sea - I left the sea in the Isle of Man in 1980 and finally returned to the sea on the south coast in 2014. If you're brought up by the sea you feel strangely disconnected if you're inland for too long
Patience - still working on that one....
Exhibit in London. In 1999 I submitted 3 paintings to the RI and 1 painting to the RBA at the Mall Galleries and they were all accepted to be exhibited at their annual Exhibitions
Acceptance - doing better at this (well most of the time)
Lots of flowers in the garden
Happiness
Sadness

Todays painting is "Pink and Grey Day"