September 18, 2018 By Migglet (Edit)

What an exciting Dancer Commission on Canvas this was!

Daunting? Yes! Could I do it justice? Yes! No! Yes! I think so?! I hope so?!! Eeeeek!  Arrrrrrrgggghhhhh! (Technical arty terms you may or may not have heard before!)

A great friend had always admired one of my watercolour paintings of a dancer, titled ‘All That Jazz’. My friend (I shall call her J) has a beautiful modern home with a vast amount of wall space and wanted a much larger version of the original A3 painting but knew she didn’t want a print.

A ‘statement piece of original art’ was the brief and it just so happened that J had a large printed canvas of a car that had been in storage for some time and she no longer wanted. “Ooooh! Yes!” says Migglet, “How large is the canvas?” “I shall drive down through the village to you and collect it!”

Slight hitch . . .

At 140cms long x 110cms wide (55 1/4” x 43 1/2”) neither of us could fit that rigid whopper of a canvas in our cars….my little red Jimny and her Mini Cooper obviously weren’t designed for lugging canvases of that size around villages in Devon, those car designers simply don’t think these things through! 

Seeing as zipwires haven’t yet been installed here, J suggested the only option was to walk the canvas up through the village to my house with another trusty friend…..turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than expected as it was a slightly blustery day and apparently that canvas acted like a sail!

I waited patiently in my house at the top of the village for them to appear…..I know, thoughtful aren’t I?! Much chortling, chuckling, hysterical visions of the pair of them taking off and inventing a new West Country craze ‘canvas surfing?’….and a couple of necessary coffees later……my friendly ‘couriers’ left the goods behind and left me to it.

BEFORE Migglet got to work . . .

It took a fair few days and many, many laborious thin base coats of gesso and acrylic paints to obliterate the original print on the canvas of a car and that was the most boring ‘yawny’ process for me, I just desperately wanted to get started! (I know some of you reading this would have loved this canvas printed vintage car and will loathe me for anihilating it, sorry, I was only following the brief!)

My original watercolour painting had a plain white background but J and I both agreed this canvas needed to be slightly different, so I used the lightest grey background with splashes and swathes of shimmering silver to add ‘life’ and drama.

Sketching her outline . . .

The day I finally got around to sketching the very basic lines of the dancer was such a GOOD day! I had my music blaring, was dancing around the room (of a fashion, charcoal in hand, cups of tea flowing…..not literally!) I admit to being more than a little excited to be finally recreating that sexy dancer and as I drew her strong, supple shapes, muscular yet feminine, I realised she would be almost life sized in the finished painting. That was an ‘eeeek!’ moment!

At this initial sketching stage, she really looks quite gangly but with bodies I always start too ‘thin’ and work my way outwards, rather than having to adjust the background, especially with paint effects.

My biggest fear was of overworking her, I really wanted her to have a ‘painterly’ finish and didn’t want to ‘sweat the small stuff’ and fret over every fine detail. She needed to have a sense of freedom about her, even though she was holding a very ‘still’ and precise dance position.

I had warned J that this dancer would have her own character and personality and wouldn’t be exactly true to my original watercolour, and J said she was more than happy for me to create a new ‘persona’…….this was a completely new experience for me, creating her with acrylics on canvas, an entirely different media to watercolour.

Finishing touches . . .

When adding those final touches (my favourite bit!)…..added texture with a palette knife, dabs of highlights here and there….especially on her satin pointe shoes…….a sheen of highlights making the floor appear almost as though she was poised en pointe on a glass surface……that lithesome little lady started to shine.

Bit by bit, she took me a few weeks from start to finish and I won’t pretend she was easy to create, due to her size she was a challenge…..but a challenge I was eager to accept!……that pesky, large, badly behaved wibbly wobbly canvas had a life of it’s own at times and Migglet had to stand on a stool to reach many areas of the painting!

But, I have to say, recycling something no longer wanted into a new piece of art and seeing a big smiley grin on J’s face standing beneath the finished Commission on Canvas hanging on that spacious wall in such a gorgeous home, made little old Migglet glow from within!

Just as I had hoped, I particularly love the way ‘Sofia’ (as J has named her) takes on a different look due to the changes in lighting at various times of the day…

And finally…

A somewhat windswept Migglet and slightly saucy ‘Sofia’, saying farewell to each other and both wondering where their next steps will take them?! Who knows?! That’s the joy of being an artist……on stage and off!

November 21, 2018 By Migglet (Edit)

A FRIGHTFULLY BUSY SUMMER…..

When we returned home from our 4 month long motorhome trip across Spain in early June (by the way, our motorhome is called Rodney, aka Rodders) I felt totally focussed and incredibly inspired to paint more and more dancers, the bigger the better!

I was on such a roll and after the confines of Rodders and having to work on fairly small paper (sized A3) I simply could not lay my hands on enough large canvases! During the summer I created Reverie, La Vie en Rose, Let there be Love, All Eyes on You…..and of course, not forgetting the enormous commission on canvas of a dancer featured in my previous blog!

I painted an extremely handsome, ‘hairy woofer’ as a birthday gift for my gorgeous niece and was going to keep her little surprise low key, but after receiving the following appreciation photo, I simply HAVE to share this with you! I was the one who ended up having the biggest surprise with this photo and I just cannot tell you how smiley this made me!! BIG thanks to my bro for this photo full of happy!!  xx

Whilst on the subject of animals, a handsome Zebra called ‘Zebedee’ was ‘born’ during the summer too! A very close friend mentioned her love of the beautiful stripey creatures, so it would have been rude of me NOT to include one on my site really, don’t you agree?! ……https://migglet.co.ukproduct/zebedee-zebra/

TO FERRY OR NOT TO FERRY?!….

This Autumn trip in Rodney was a very last minute decision….my ‘HIM’ and I were chatting one evening in late September about possibly booking a ferry…..we had a quick look online and discovered they were pretty much all booked up! Naturally, THAT made us want to go away all the more! 

And here we are back in Spain…..we’ve been away for about 5 weeks and the weather has been pretty kind to us which means we are out and about a lot during the day, bumbling about on our bicycles, so I haven’t had the opportunity to do as much ‘Miggleting’ as normal.

HOWEVER….

I discovered a piece of unfinished artwork inside my Rodney art box that I had completely forgotten about! (I seem to be making a habit of forgetting to remember not to forget things!)

I had started working on the piece just before we returned home in June, so on this trip I have continued working on the painting as and when, here and there. Once she has been scanned, I shall be adding her to my ‘Less is More’ series as well as my ‘Stylised Portraits’ series because she sits perfectly within both categories……..

The beautiful ‘BB’….my version of the young, beautiful Brigitte Bardot…photographer unknown.

*Please note, ALL photos included in this blog have been taken on my iPad whilst we are away so the quality will NOT be as clear as professional scans and subsequent prints of my artwork and my iPad is terrible for making white backgrounds of the paintings featured below look pink, grey or anything it feels like at the time! 

NOT ONLY BUT ALSO…….

I have been creating………shooooooooooes!!! 

Space is obviously fairly limited in Rodney for a huge supply of ‘Louboutins’ or ‘Jimmy Choos’, so one afternoon while ‘HIM’ had a siesta, I dug out my arty box and painted my first of a series of ‘Miggletins’ or ‘Migglety Chooooooos’ ?!! 

The biggest arty challenge is not getting too carried away and splattering Rodders’ interior with numerous hues of Miggletyness! Thankfully, his seats are leather so when painting the first shoe I was able to scrub off all traces of inky evidence just before hubby awoke from his snoring slumber! 

Roses are red, Violets are blue, my man had a siesta so I painted this shoe!….

As I write this, I have created a few more shoe designs (see below) all of which are safely packed away, ready to be professionally scanned by my marvellous printer as soon as we get home (the first week in December) ….he just doesn’t know it yet!?!….and then they will all be available as art prints and prints on canvas…..just in time for Christmas! ( Typed with fingers firmly crossed, which isn’t easy!)

These shoes have ALL been painted on pure white paper…..can somebody please tell my iPad that?!! 

Everybody knows a girl can NEVER have too many shoes, especially if they are ‘Miggletins’!

*I just thought!..Can Santa fit a shoe INSIDE a stocking?! 

 ** If you would like to pre-order any Art Prints or Prints on Canvas of any of these shoes designs please DO let me know asap? And don’t forget, p&p is always free within the UK! 

May I also proudly introduce you to my most recent painting now available as Art Prints and Canvas Prints titled . . .

‘COLOUR ME HAPPY’

For me she has it all…..joy, grace, an impish cheeky grin and an abundance of vibrancy…..and I hope you love her half as much as I enjoyed creating her!!

As I upload this message to my site and the powers of the internet send it off to all of you wonderful people who have signed up to read my news and Migglety babble, I would like to thank you from my little arty heart for all your support in 2018 and wish you an utterly fabulous 2019!

I am entering the New Year with excited anticipation for all the new ideas I have in my arty head and can’t wait to put them all on paper and canvas!

With love,

Migglet x