Painting-in-progress and a new-to-me etsy shop

Just wanted to show you quickly my latest painting-in-progress.

It's the cliffs at Hunstanton! I think my many years' experience of painting woodchip-covered rooms helps

I don’t know if you know this (I didn’t before I started), but, oil paints take absolutely ages to dry, so you have to do your base coat first and then do the detail a week or so later. It’s a bit like emulsioning the kitchen and then waiting to do the glossing. So that is why it looks like a bad painting-by-numbers at the moment, it is waiting for the Fine Brushwork. If you want your paints to dry in a sensible timescale you use acrylics, but, obviously I am used to knitting things for months and then them not fitting, so a week is nothing to me. Nothing. In fact I am considering one day knitting Lyra and that may take me the rest of my life.

Slap it on! The man next to me said through gritted teeth, thin your base coats out a bit more otherwise it will crack. I said, in my lifetime? He said, no, I said, well then

While I was doing my painting, the man next to me in the art class (who has read a book) got very anxious because he said I could not paint a cliff scene with my canvas vertical, I had to paint it with my canvas horizontal as that is the only correct way to paint landscapes. He actually turned my canvas round. I said I could live with being wrong and I turned it back again. He is a nice man, though, because when the woman next to him told him his cherub looked like Bart Simpson he took it in excellent part (cherubs are difficult. Start with a cliff, that’s my advice).

We had to lean our canvases against the wall at the end of the class to discuss them, and there was not much space, so one woman leaned hers against the door. Well, we all watched carefully in case anyone was going to come through the door and knock it over (remember, they are completely wet), but, we were not watching for people in the class going out as we thought they ought to realise. Well, do you remember the woman who told me she would never knit? (No Lyra ever for her then!) - She went straight out of the door, did not move the painting so the door knocked it smack on the floor face down, and then did not even come back to check it was ok when we all let out a collective gasp (it survived, just about). If it had been my painting I might have been a bit suspicious, but, perhaps her mind is just on Higher Things. I think it must be: she is clearly a Proper Artist, as she has a smock.

Also just wanted to show you this etsy shop I found: Simply Original Frocks. She is having a half-price sale at the moment and I think she has some really nice things which you could either wear straightforwardly prettily or ironically if that makes sense, so, if you are in the market for some new threads for summer it might be worth a look. She bases her clothes on original 50s patterns and the fabrics she uses are really beautiful. Anyway, her sale is a mothers’ day sale, so, perhaps move quickly if you want something (I’m no connection, I just think her clothes look really nice!).

OK, that’s me done. I’m off to make a marmalade cake. I’ve somehow lost half an inch on my waist (may have just measured myself for possible skirt-buying purposes…) even though I’ve doubled my cake intake, so I’ve decided it’s a health food and our intake probably should be tripled so best get going. Besides, you wouldn’t believe how much marmalade is in this house, honestly, you wouldn’t.