The Lenten Rose Fairy: everybody’s favourite designated driver

Poor poor fairy of the Lenten Rose (Helleborus orientalis). She gets to put on her glad rags right through lent, but, as botanical representative of the season of abstinence, she never gets to have any fun, and by the time lent is done, she’s had her time for another year. Her flowers are really quite something special, but no wonder they hang their heads. So, next time you’re failing in a resolution to give up chocolate / alcohol / cake / Facebook / shaving / being a dick or whatever else your resolution is, just remember that you can go…

Freyja has an exhausting day

Yesterday Freyja had an exhausting day, first she had to lie in the unseasonably warm sun, because who knows when that will happen again. Later she would have to decide which of her water glasses to drink out of. (She has a water glass next to my desk, so that she doesn’t try to drink my paint water). The sketch of fiddlers was from a completely different time and place, but ironically she has also had to put up with listening to sight-reading practice on an actual fiddle. It was hard work for both of us…

Snowdrop Fairies refined (the painting, not the actual fairies!)

I have refined the snowdrop fairy picture, in terms of execution and composition. The fairies themselves are still the twats they were in the original drawing. Had to get this one finished while the flowers were still out, or wait another 11 months for them to flower again. Drawing flowers from photographs is never very effective because you can’t get a feel for their structure, and obviously the fairies do not show up in photographs at all. There have been famous photographs of fairies, but as the Cottingley girls admitted sixty years later, those photographs – belief in which so…

Snowdrop Fairies are twats

So, you complained that I haven’t been drawing enough fairies recently… sorry this is only a very quick sketch but here’s some seasonal ones I spotted, and you have to be quick to catch them: Snowdrop fairies. Do your snowdrops dangle? Chances are that you have a snowdrop fairy infestation. This isn’t the way the flowers are meant to be, it’s because snowdrop fairies are, basically …twats. They like nothing better than to swing on the flowers until all their heads are dangling down. The only way to protect your plants to sneak out by moonlight and spray the plants…

New websites, old pictures

Apologies for the silence, amongst other things I’ve spent the last 3 days getting my original artwork up in my other Etsy shop, the cunningly named NancyFarmerTwo. Not quite there yet but I just thought I’d let you know. I have quite a lot of stuff, some of it’s not seen the light of day for quite a while…. some random things, some bargains, some huge and expensive pieces, lots of etchings, they’re all getting an airing. More to come… It’s all here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/NancyFarmerTwo After that, it’s about time I had a new website or tow. Proper ones. More to…

Half Price Print Sale

I have a surplus prints problem! I now have too many in my exhibition stock to put them all out on display, so I’ve put a load of them on Etsy in the ‘Sale’ section of my shop. Mostly there is only one available of each, though there are some duplicates. Click here to see them all. Once they’re gone, these pictures will still be available because i usually print the to order, but they will go back to their full price, so grab these if you want a bargain… There are over 60, all sizes, here is just a…

Exhibition now on!

I have a solo art exhibition at Ilminster Arts Centre this month. I have gathered together almost all of the new artwork that I have available since the last solo exhibition I had there about 3 years ago, including several new paintings I have been working on especially for this exhibition along the theme of ‘A Westcountry Bestiary’. I’ve also displayed quite a few of my Swimming Drawings. The gallery is really quite spacious, and at one end is a lovely friendly cafe, where they do light lunches and lovely cake. What more reason could you wish for to drop…

‘Hidden Depths’ at the Curzon Cinema, Clevedon, July 2016

An exhibition of art inspired by The Marine Lake at Clevedon I love the Marine Lake, it’s very special, and it’s the place where I first seriously got into open water swimming. From this sprang a spontaneous series of drawings about the nature of swimming outside, and so I’m delighted to have been asked to display some of these as part of an exhibition celebrating the Marine Lake. I’ve swum there for hours in the summer, and braved its icy waters in the winter; the lake and its visitors have been an engaging year-round subject. I shall be exhibiting alongside…

The return of Medusa

In case you thought I only did drawings of swimmers nowadays, here is a little work in progress. I have an exhibition booked at Ilminster Arts Centre in July and I need to get on with quite a lot of new work, of the kind of ‘fantasy-satire’ that people expect to see there (and indeed what I expected to exhibit there when I booked it a couple of years ago). The swimming drawings probably will also feature, but I have a working title for the exhibition which is ‘A Westcountry Bestiary‘ and a nice little handful of new paintings along…

The Cumbria Flood Appeal drawing

Back at the end of last year Cumbria was suddenly rather underwater. I live in Somerset, where we know a bit about flooding, but this is also a place where I have spent a lot of time over the years. I know people there and I know some of the roads and landmarks that got washed away, so I decided I would hold a little charity auction in aid of the flood appeal fund. The winner of the auction would get a drawing of a subject of their choosing that I would create from photographs and imagination – but I…