a nice surprise

I have had an Instagram account since the days of it being a fun place to share photos (rather than an algorithmic god whom we must appease with various fruitless challenges in order to be visible), and I made a number of friends via the platform who I’m still in touch with today. In 2016 I made a new account for my bird illustrations as I used to co-organise and attend a life drawing class, and I felt it was a bit of challenge to ask people to scroll past the drawings of naked people to try and find a painting of a Great Tit (ahem – no sniggering at the back please).

I still keep that account, and share some of my more experimental or personal artwork there, and I really appreciate the feedback and responses from my longstanding followers as well as enjoying the art of people who I knew way back when they were relatively small accounts.

It was lovely to see a friend from my life drawing days tag me in his story, as we’ve not spoken since the class in its former incarnation stopped in March 2020 due to the pandemic.

Choosing Keeping is a new stockist: it’s a glorious stationery shop based in Covent Garden. I often find it difficult to stay motivated as being self-employed in the creative industries means a lot of “no thanks”; “not really for us”; ” we could try a couple on sale or return I suppose”; “I’m afraid it’s not the right product for me” etc etc and although there definitely are positive and affirming experiences, they can feel rather sparse at times. I’m not very conscientious about recording the encouraging responses and vindicating messages so they easily get lost.

I realise this isn’t very October-ish or Halloweeny or remotely autumnal but I’ve got a day at home tomorrow so will endeavour to come up with something more seasonal for then!