I don’t eat chocolates, but like the empty trays. Got a big collection now…just don’t know what to make with them yet?

I just needed to bake yesterday…Cardamon shortbread and Shrewsbury biscuits…

My niece sent me these cakes through the post in a cardboard tube…they made me smile.

Looking through my boxes…

Now there’ll be a lot of things to show as I sort my studio shelves…

Time to make Rhubarb Pie; inspired after coming across my American Fruit Cards, seeing this vibrant pink Early Rhubarb in London, and receiving this fabulous Pie Set for Christmas. FALCON Enamelware established 1920. A classic product thoughtfully represented with seductive honesty. Great Packaging by Morse Studio. I just love to open the box and look and dream of pies… just when I’d given up trawling the markets for unchipped pie dishes. http://www.falconenamelware.com

Just in London…saw Grayson Perry: The Tomb of a Craftsman at The British Museum…one of the most fascinating exhibitions I’ve seen in a while. A good marketing idea for the BM…more than the expected Egypt. Perry had selected his objects made by unknown men and women from their collection…a chance to see things you didn’t know were there…and see how they inspired or related to his own way of looking. He writes so clearly. What an opportunity to get inside a living artists’ head. http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/grayson_perry.aspx

Look! A Toft’s ceramic plate was there too. http://www.thepotteries.org/potters/toft.htm

Have a sneak preview of some pages inside the book.

Buy the book! Order now print on demand at createspace.com
Get 40% percent discount with this code: B5Q4MDWY

I CANT DRAW… WAYS OF LOOKING  (364 pages)
ART FOR BEGINNERS #01, 10 weeks x 2 hours on a Tuesday in a village hall…                Follow Hannah’s joyous and unique approach to inspiring creativity in others.                        “The joy jumps off every page… a very, very exciting book.”

A rich and stimulating visual journey for adults of all ages interested in doing something in Art. For those of you who have never drawn before, painted a long time ago at school, were told they couldn’t draw or shouldn’t do Art. For anyone who wants to get bolder and looser, for anyone who wants to see if they can. For all the many adults who are really scared, but dare to try, for those who want to have some fun!

Explore your own creativity… follow what we did and be inspired… Experiment with colour, making marks, learn to look, play with paint, let your expectations go, be bold, dare to lose your fears, have fun! There is no right, there is no wrong. There are no rules…

“You could not guess a single person could generate so much vitality, bright positive colour and celebration of creativity.”

“I keep seeing everything around me with new eyes.”

“I learned it was alright to have fun!”

I hadn’t anticipated at all how scared most adults are, how many fears we
carry, just how little confidence we have in ourselves, how this can totally stop
us from doing something we might actually like.

I wrote WAYS OF LOOKING as a basic Art foundation course specifically for the
adults in our village of all ages, from 45-95, though the energy needed proved
sometimes too demanding for the older legs. Not for Art Students or Art
Professionals, but for Ordinary Adults who were interested in doing something
in Art but were shy and lacking in confidence.

“I ran the first ‘Art Classes for Beginners’ in our village hall with a boiler room for an Art cupboard, on the west coast of Scotland. In a very small village by the sea in the middle of nowhere particular. You don’t have to live near the facilities of a city or an Art College studio to want to learn to look and draw, but you do have to be resourceful gathering materials, coping with the challenging weather and unusual locations…we never drew dead cockerels freshly wrung that morning at College.”

I decided after 6 further teaching blocks over these 2 years in this challenging rural setting and a bombastic exhibition this summer, it was time to make a book! to share the experience even further. This is no step-by-step book, but aims to inspire and encourage with lots and lots of pictures and a little text. It’s a human story. Full of individual fears and blocks and finally, pride, fun and joy. Art classes on a Tuesday followed gamely by anyone like you! It’s simply about collecting ways of looking.

Beginning work on ART FOR BEGINNERS #02 LOOKING AT COLOUR… this time it’s outside the comfort and warmth of the hall, it’s all on location…

Wait for further books full of looking and inspiration in the LOOKBOOK
series Art for Beginners by me. Designer/Illustrator/Artist/Teacher MA RCA

You have to look closely at these vegetables…produced in extraordinary textiles, designed by Dutch Designers Scholten & Baijings…

and read the text sharply written with reference to DUTCH DESIGN export by Gerrit Komrij, nrc handelsblad….see more of their glassware, fabrics and product design at www.scholtenbaijings.com

I’ve been collecting vegetable seed packets for years because I love the illustration and colours, thing is, they were in storage for 15 years and all went mouldy…