Since having my second little boy and returning back to my art practice, a few things have changed for me, one of them being my studio space. I have been lucky enough to have a really lovely studio space nestled in the heart of Ashdown Forest for the past five years. The space isn’t completely ideal with its attic roof – I was constantly bumping my head on the sloped ceiling and I’m not even that tall – but it’s pretty spacious and I could at least make a mess and spread myself and my materials out. It’s peaceful, light and also warm in the winter when the heating was on. However, I stopped going to my studio towards the last month or two of my pregnancy and I haven’t even really been back since. This wasn’t intentional but it just sort of happened. The reason being my little boy didn’t start nursery until he was about 18 months old and even then he was just doing half days, so to justify the drive there and back was not feasible for what would be a couple of hours work. I needed something which could work for me in terms of time, something on my doorstep, or even something at home. When you have small children, those spare pockets of time are just golden, especially nap times. I needed to be able to have my creative time in these little pockets of quiet. So, I decided to set myself up with a little painting corner upstairs in my home ‘office’. I hate the word office but it sort of ended up being called that, it’s the place where I do design work on my computer, as well as where I keep all of my prints stored. It’s small but I’ve somehow made it work for me.

I had some canvases lying around and I knew I needed to satisfy these urges to just paint! So I did…I got my old oil paints out and I had a play around. I didn’t even paint any lettering, I just painted birds and flowers – things that had been floating around in my brain for months, images I had been collecting on a Pinterest board and storing in my mind. Below is one of the first paintings I did to get me back into just being creative. I found it so freeing and for the first time in a long time I was just painting something that I wanted to paint. I didn’t need to share it with anyone, I was just doing it for myself, which felt totally liberating. I would go up in the evenings once I had got my boys both to sleep and I would just paint. I was exhausted, but I was still managing to get myself a little bit of special solitude to myself. It was exciting to go upstairs and take a peek inside my little home office (now home studio!) - and remind myself what I was doing, it was almost a bit addictive at first…I just couldn’t wait to get up there.

It’s set me in good stead these past 12-18 months or so whilst I have been able to build up a small collection of new work. I have been able to create the new works on paper that I am set to release in the springtime. It’s been a slow process but it’s worked for me and it still will for the foreseeable. I have a plan chest of all my prints, a desk where I work at and an easel where I can paint, I’ve also got a pretty big wall space where I have now managed to display a lot of the work I have been creating. I am set to add more shelving in the wardrobe cupboard to maximise the storage and I need to try and move all the books from the bookshelves somewhere else in my house to make more space. It’s all about being clever with the use of space and to try and keep it tidy.

My dream is to build my own studio at the bottom of my garden, but unfortunately my garden is not big enough for that so it would involve a totally new house move! Something to aspire to and manifest for the future perhaps though!?