A word from Alice - studio stories from Alice Draws the Line

Just a quick one to say ‘save the date!’

Our Christmas Open Studios trail will be on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th December 2022 from 10am-3pm.

Aardvark books will be holding their Christmas Fair on the Sunday too so well worth coming to visit the village!

There are many artists in the village of Brampton Bryan, but most work quietly behind closed doors. This is an opportunity to visit the studios and do a bit of Christmas shopping. We’ll be making some flyers soon to tell you all about those involved. 

Hello again! 

On Saturday I went to a wedding fair held at Ludlow Racecourse. I’d only ever been to one wedding fair before and so I was looking forward to attending and meeting others that were exhibiting.

I took a selection of wedding stationery examples and cards to demonstrate my illustration style. I also had some of the placecard designs that I’ve done in the past. 

It was lovely to meet people planning the weddings - those who were just gathering ideas with nothing planned yet, through to those that were just sorting the final details. 

Today I’m having a day at the studio, preparing for the wedding fair tomorrow.

I plan to take card designs that could be customised for weddings, my folder of previous wedding stationery I’ve created, some illustrated wedding flowers and then some pens, ink and watercolour so I can do some lettering illustrations while I’m there.

In the early days of Alice Draws the Line, I would get up, sit at my little desk in the sitting room with a big mug of tea (earl grey usually) and write a blog post. First thing, still in my pyjamas. It started the day off well, made me feel intentional about developing my little business. A positive boost before I did anything else.

I can’t work out if it is just something I did occasionally or very regularly, or quite how often. What I do remember is that I liked doing it.

On Friday 23rd, Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th September 2022, I'll be at the Malvern Autumn Show.

While I am there I will be starting and working on a painting of some locally grown flowers. 

It will be an A3 piece, on watercolour paper, drawn in pen and ink and coloured with watercolour. 

I am doing this so people can see how I produce my work - and because I love seeing other artists at work when I'm visiting places!

I have decided to create this piece as a raffle prize, and so for the price of £1 you can be in with a chance of winning the painting. 

I have just had a really lovely weekend away at Logfire Holidays, Gwenoldy, near Mold in North Wales. 

Back in February Nicola who owns Logfire Holidays ran a giveaway competition on her Instagram account to win a stay in their new addition - a shepherd hut... and I won! I decided to go with my cousin as it had been ages since we had enjoyed a good catch up and we had a fab time. 

As regular readers will know, I seem to have an interest in experimenting with working at a larger scale.

Last week I took a big piece of paper out into the parkland near the studio and sketched using one of my homemade feather quills.

Hip Hip Hooray! bunting can be hung up for any celebration! Perfect for birthdays, anniversaries, engagements, weddings, parties, passing exams or driving tests, having a baby, mortgage approval, new home - anything!

The bunting is A6 in size and professionally printed on recycled card. It is hole punched and comes with thread ready for you to put together to suit the space you want to put it. It arrives in a labelled cardboard box, perfect for storage until the next celebration!

Look at all these pigeons I spotted in Barmouth yesterday. All on the railway bridge.

We hadn't parked for long enough for me to sketch them there and then, and so today I drew four from the photographs I took instead.

I started with black ink - mixing it with water for the initial layer. Later adding colour pencils, white dry pastel, silver ink and charcoal pencil as well as black and grey brush pens.