Just draw!

Written by an artist/maker, the app is doing just what I need all in one place. I’ve got my customers, companies, items, stock numbers, orders, reports, and invoicing all together, all connected. I’d been looking at creating a solution in Bento, or even in a really unfriendly spreadsheet, but Organise does what I need in a familiar application environment. It’s also a mature app, currently a few updates into version 5. It’s pretty intuitive, has a lot of documentation, and is built with UK taxes as default (which can be hard to find in many apps).

I still have a long way to go with organising my work (I need a spreadsheet to list item storage location, flat or roll ship, etc.) but Organise is putting my mind at ease with a huge chunk of the nasty admin part of being an artist. The more I can cut through the admin jungle, the more time I can spend in the studio. All good.

I figured it’s about time I do a proper, traditional vase of flowers still life painting, so here it is. Oil on canvas paper.
(Reference photo is my own, shot in the living room.)

What looks like a couple of folding tables – perhaps for a wedding or banquet – are actually two new, 6′ heavy-duty, folding tables which I can take anywhere I am teaching art.

Mobile art classes.

This is very exciting to me.

Twelve students packed into my regular Wednesday morning life drawing class today.
It’s time to grow!

Starting in January, I’ll be teaching a still life drawing class at Brockhill Methodist Church, Crackington Haven and in the spring I’ll be adding evening classes to the Wooda Life Drawing sessions. Very exciting!

In future, I’ll also add a few all-day intensive classes here and there. More details on those long sessions (as well as the life and still life classes) as I work them out.

Not sure how many times I’ll draw him (or the others in the work) but I’ll know when I’m done.

I used to sign my work with my last name but found out that this is a changeable thing for the female of the species. The only thing that has stayed constant in my years on earth is my first name, and so it is with that that I have decided to sign my work. I’ve been doing it for the past handful of years and it is certainly not a stab at my husband, Neil, but rather an assertion of the unchangeable me.

I’ve been born, adopted, married and married again. One thing I know: I am jEN, Jen, Jennifer, and I always will be.

Though a formatting set-back put me off track for a bit, I’ve solved the problem and have decided to go for self-publishing with availability through Ingram (meaning bookshops can stock it) with a proper ISBN. This gets my book out there fast and I know it will stand out from the typical self-pub pile of rubbish.
I know my stuff…

So it’s back to the drawing board – literally, not metaphorically – and I’ve got a book that can’t wait to be born.

It’s a children’s book, yes. I’m inking the panels with a dip pen, scanning them, then applying colour and texture in Painter 11. All very exciting, I assure you