Merry Christmas Everyone and a happy new year!

How lovely it is to have a few days just doing nice things like eating good food, having lazy mornings in bed and giving and opening pressies:D

My gorgeous man, Matthew, has bought a new laptop for me and I'll be moving house again soon to somewhere less expensive, so i'll be able to afford to be online at home and keep up with my blog and stuff much more easily!

I think I've mentioned before how I usually really struggle in the winter, I hate the cold and the unrelenting greyness, but so far this winter I'm feeling very positive and excited about the upcoming new year, maybe I'm finally suceeding in changing my habitual thinking patterns, wouldn't that be great :D

Christmas day at Matthews sisters house. Me cuddling their new dog, a gorgeous cocker spaniel called Bruno.

Some new work, Falling Cherry Blossom at a shrine in Kyoto.

 Details from Falling Cherry Blossom at Heian Jingu, one of my fave shrines in Kyoto.

The full painting, it makes me feel happy but nostalgic for my year in Japan as cherry blossom season in Kyoto is one of the beautiful things I've ever seen. It rendered me into an excited little girl who finds herself suddenly transported into her favourite fairy tale. I intend to do a whole series of falling cherry blossom paintings just for the fun and beauty of it all.

xxx

New Painting - White Cherry Tree

So I've actually got myself together enough over the the past couple of days to make a start on a new painting!!! Why is it that most artists will put off doing the thing they love most? It's very frustrating. The things I did to avoid making a start include cooking a full on roast dinner (lamb with all the trimmings), doing masses of washing up, cleaning the bathroom floor, going shopping, watching southpark and playing guitar, anything in fact to avoid the scary void of new white paper staring back at me when I've not painted for a while.

And then I get I get started and of course I really love it:D

I Thought it was finished earlier and I took off the masking tape (I love doing that), but now I've decided to add a bit more detail to the foreground on the left hand side. The painting is of a beautiful weeping white cherry tree in the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, like most of Kyoto in cherry blossom season it gives you the feeling of stepping into a more beautiful, enchanted fairytale of a world. Have I mentioned before how much I love cherry blossom;D

Anyway, here it is so far.

xxx