Migglet News

Hello lovely Peeps, I hope this post finds you all well in these strange, scary & surreal times?

I know it is hard to comprehend what is going on in the world and many are finding it utterly impossible to get their heads around the current situation, let alone find their creative mojos.

I have had many weeks away from my easel for various reasons which is VERY unlike me but I am now starting to play once again, and have just painted and framed three original miniature bee paintings as little tokens of gratitude from me to 3 nominated NHS health workers who are working tirelessly while we live in our ‘comfort and safety bubbles’ at home during lockdown.

My marvellous HIM and I have spent many hours tending to our crazy terraced garden at the back of our house, and the sunshine has been most welcome here in Devon while we are in ‘stay at home’ mode and we both know just how lucky we are to live high up in this beautiful village overlooking the Teign Estuary and Dartmoor.

Another little dancer who will be leaving me!

I am delighted to have just sold one of my latest pastel pieces, ‘Dress Rehearsal -Dancing Hibiscus’ to an ex-pupil of the same Ballet School I boarded at, although we weren’t there at the same time and have never met. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and my regular posts on my ‘ArtyMigglet’ Facebook page, her new owner discovered my little delicate Hibiscus drawing and she will shortly be dancing her way over to her new home in Australia and I am over the moon with our dance school connection!

My marvellous HIM and I!

Talking of the wonders of the internet, my marvellous HIM and I have been extremely busy behind the scenes for the last few months creating and working on a very exciting new project and we are finally at the launching phase!! 🚀

I REALLY wanted other artists to have the opportunity be able to show their work online as beautifully and professionally as my marvellous HIM was able to do for me when he designed and created my Migglet site and by jove I think he’s done it!!

My HIM has many years of experience in web design and print and I DO love to encourage fellow artists & creatives, so we thought we would put our two enthusiastic wedded heads together and create a professional new website showcasing the work of Artists, Artisans & Photographers on their own personal web pages in order for them to shine!

And thus, our new ‘baby’…Art Showcase was born! 😃

We believe there are a great many talented amateur & professional artists, artisans, photographers etc who would dearly love their own website but for many reasons have never had the opportunity or time to get their work ‘out there’ and have been understandably fearful of the time and costs involved and/or simply terrified at the prospect of knowing where to start and what to do!

This is where we’ve done all the hard work for them!! 😃

Now more than ever is the time to be sharing our creativity with people to make them smile, feel happy, bring colour to their lives and warmth in their hearts! It IS a feeling and ALL creatives know how powerful that feeling can be, and if our work isn’t seen by others that emotion simply can’t be shared!

Please do visit our new site Artshowcase.co.uk and let others know about it too if you think they may be at all interested, wherever in the world they may be, our gallery of Showcases has grown since I started typing this Newsletter! I am awfully excited about our new venture and am babbling on about it quite a lot , can you tell?! 🤣😇🍾🥂

N.B. We are including free listings on the site for art societies, clubs, exhibitions and events once life gets back to ‘normal’ for us all too! Do please spread the word about that facility?!

P.S. You may notice that I, ArtyMigglet, have my very own Showcase Gallery on our shiny new site?!!….well, it would have been rude NOT to, wouldn’t it?! Oh the perks of being married to the Boss!!! 🤣🥳 😇

Take care lovely peeps, stay safe, sending my love to you and ALL yours and I hope you will enjoy my arty journey which is once again heading off in different exciting directions, but I won’t ever get lost (sorry about that!?!) and will always follow my own Arty Migglet yellow brick road!!! 😘

See you at the next roundabout, peeps!! 🚗

And DO PLEASE tell me what YOU have been up to during lockdown in the comments section below? I always love to hear from you all! 🥰

How do you describe the feeling when creating art? I honestly don’t know. I could babble on with oodles of adjectives and arty farty waffle but it simply IS a feeling and it comes in waves, whether they may be joyful waves or melancholy thoughts, art is always an emotional and very personal journey.

There are most definitely times when art is the only therapy, the heart seems to guide the brushes & the ‘place you are in’ at the time of creating is most evident in the work you produce.

I’m ignoring my imaginary art critics…

As always… ( yep, no change here!) …nothing is ever planned with my art, but one thing I DO know is that I am heading into 2020 with more clarity about my artwork than I had this time last year, and wherever ‘the feeling’ takes me, that’s where my creations will lie.

For me there is a fine line between sweating the small stuff in accuracy and fine detail whilst capturing that spontaneous feeling without overworking a piece. Leaving the viewer to fill in my work with their own imagination is something I seem to love doing best and it is so evident in all my latest pieces. I do genuinely believe that if you ENJOY your art, you will produce the best work you can possibly do, and who can ask for more of you than that?!

I know some of my creations are like marmite and you may either love them or loathe them but that’s fine with me, you don’t have to like all of it or any of it. I now finally feel confident that I am creating from within and the fact that some of you lovely peeps love some of my work enough to want to share it, support it and purchase it, still blows me away!

Hello 2020

So here I am, starting the year 2020 with some emotive and fairly large pieces on canvas and I have some exciting art exhibitions to look forward to in February, March and May (plus more in the…’fingers crossed’ …pipeline!)

Please do keep in touch if you wish to find out where and when further exhibitions will be ( I post regularly as ArtyMigglet on Facebook and Instagram ) but in the meantime please follow the link below for a list of Art Exhibitions in 2020 I already know I am lucky enough to be a part of during the next few months, starting in February in the beautiful Spanish Barn, Torre Abbey, Torquay.

Art Exhibitions 2020

I hope you will enjoy following me as I carry on with this colourful journey and wish you all the luck and love in the world for 2020, wherever the path may lead you. X

**Please note I will be entering ALL of the six paintings featured here into the Torbay Guild of Artists Exhibition in The Spanish Barn next week, please do come along and see them in the arty flesh! Of course, if you wish to enquire about purchasing a painting prior to the exhibition, please contact me before February 4th. X

I am just back from yet another fabulous Autumn road trip with my marvellous HIM touring Portugal and Spain in our motorhome Rodney and I am slowly but surely settling back in to normal life, whatever ‘normal’ is?! I tried to work on writing this piece whilst we were away but the connections were often so hit and miss, in the end I gave up trying. Most unusual for me as I am known for being awfully trying! 😇

For months I have been meaning to sit down and write about this Commissioned Painting of a Dancer from earlier in the year and to reveal the full painting, so enough procrastinating Migglet… finally… here goes! 🥳

You know, it is somewhat humbling to be contacted by a complete stranger who has only ever seen your work on your website and is willing to put all their faith into commissioning you to create something unique and personal for them.

The whole process is fairly lengthy and complex and involves many waves of emotions from the initial ‘thinking’ stage throughout the creative process and right through to completion, acceptance and finally the enormous relief on delivery!

If you have been following me for a while, you will know I am an instinctive artist and definitely not a planner, so a Commission is always a different process for me where initial planning and a great deal of thought simply have to be used!

There are numerous lengthy emails back and forth as communication is key. It is imperative that I can ‘get inside the head’ of the client. I need to completely understand the brief before I can even begin to think of creating the piece.

Size, subject, medium (i.e. Acrylic on canvas in this instance) colours of background, final position of piece and colour scheme of the room it is intended for etc etc, there are so many factors to consider.

Finding out which of my paintings the client prefers on my website, narrowing down a great many choices, getting to know the client’s taste and personality as much as is possible…..all these things are necessary for BOTH of us to feel we are on the same wavelength and are about to move in the same direction.

A final phone call and discussion of all the client’s requirements and everything about this commission fell into place in my head, thanks to a wonderfully clear description of the beautiful bedroom and colour scheme where the finished piece was to be hung.

Suddenly I could picture the finished painting…and…ALL (!?!) I needed to do was source and purchase the right sized canvas and create a beautiful, traditional, bespoke ballerina! …….Sorted! 😃

I communicated with the client via email during the process once I had started working on the piece so that she knew what stage I was at because I am sure it must be quite a nerve wracking process for the client too?! After all, nobody can climb inside MY head which is probably just as well as it is rather cluttered in there!

This ballerina was created from different sources, not just one reference photograph but many, so she only exists purely on that one canvas and from my imagination, which was a very new and exciting challenge for me!

It was such a HUGE relief once the painting was safely delivered to the client, unpacked from it’s many layers of packaging ( I was absolutely determined that dancer would not be able to escape!) and I received such a joyful email from the client to let me know how delighted she was with the finished piece! Nothing ever beats a happy joyful client! 

And when I read that the client was happy for me to use the scanned image to be able to produce Prints from my Original Commissioned Ballerina Painting… quote ‘as it would be such a shame for her NOT to be seen by others’ I was delighted and most appreciative as I was more than a little proud of the finished painting.

I decided to give her the title ‘Serenity’ and I hope you enjoy this following little video clip!

If you wish to purchase an Art Print or Canvas Print of this painting of a dancer titled ‘Serenity’ please click on the direct link below. Of course, bespoke sizes are always available too, don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any queries!

Serenity

Finally, thank you so much for following me and my arty path, for me it is one long journey of excitement and surprises, not so much a yellow brick road, but a colour me very happy one! 😘 xx

Banksy shmanksy, it’s Miggsy’s Graffiti! 🤣

Graffiti in Teignmouth by Migglet?! Now that WAS a first for me!! 😃

It is a few weeks now since I finally managed to paint my very first graffiti / street art painting of a loopy vibrant Fish on the wall outside Sam’s super shop Voyage Fairtrade in the Arts Quarter in Teignmouth.

Sam had asked me during my Solo Exhibition back in May if I could one day adorn the large arched recess in the wall outside his shop with one of my quirky ‘Splishy Splashy Fishy Wishy’ creations and the pair of us waited expectantly for the paints to arrive AND for the weather to sort itself out as June was a wet and windy washout and then July was…unbelievably here in the UK…too HOT!!

No way could I paint a blindingly white wall in the scorching heat, a melted Migglet would be neither use nor ornament, so we waited… and waited…until a cloudy day was finally forecast and off to Teignmouth I jolly well set one slightly overcast Sunday afternoon!

Sam’s shop in the Arts Quarter is such a busy family run friendly place and is a bit of a tardis, with various workshops run upstairs, an Art Gallery for local Artisans, Fair Trade gifts galore downstairs to suit all tastes and pockets and I am absolutely delighted to have been offered the opportunity to be able to exhibit there and sell some of my Original Paintings, Framed Prints and Greetings Cards too.

The dastardly sun kept trying it’s best to peek through the clouds so at times I must have looked completely and utterly daft wearing my reading glasses with sunglasses perched over the top!  (Bet Banksy doesn’t look as ‘street’ when he’s splattering graffiti all over the place, eh?!) I did think of wearing my stealth outfit and painting in the dead of night but the cape really chafes and besides, black makes me look so frightfully drained!

Although I live in a village a few minutes away from Teignmouth, I feel lucky to be a part of the strong community spirit amongst the locals in town and they regularly pop into the shop to buy gifts, attend the workshops and have a good old natter with Sam and his lovely Mum and whoever else may be present…which is good for the heart, good for the soul and absolutely great for supporting the local artists and creatives!

Visitors from abroad make a point of calling in to have a browse and check out the Artwork, Crafts, Jewellery, Driftwood creations, Pottery, Fairtrade gifts etc and they love to leave feedback too.

I am thrilled to have been sent photos and selfies of people standing next to my Fish Graffiti from some of the visitors to Voyage Fairtrade and have started creating an album of the pics (below are just a few examples) DO please send them to me via email to add to our collection and let us know where you visited from?! The photo from the furthest away country won’t win a prize or an Oscar, just the satisfaction of knowing you came to just the right place and we helped to brighten up your visit in our cheerful arty way!

Teignmouth! Where the sun shines SO brightly, graffiti artists can’t help doing the happy dance! 🤣😎

If you are unable to pop into Teignmouth but wish to visit Voyage Fairtrade, here is Sam’s online shop full of goodies and information. https://voyagefairtrade.co.uk/

I now have some large Original Paintings on display in the gallery upstairs and you may well recognise one or two smaller pieces of my artwork featured here! https://voyagefairtrade.co.uk/collections/fair-trade-uk-paintings