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Hello all, I hope you are doing well during this third lockdown. At last there are signs of spring all around; last weekend felt practically tropical here in Cornwall. I have been cold water swimming (as has the entire female population of Cornwall it seems) and getting changed in the sun afterwards has made all the difference. I am still working away on the Red Rag Gallery exhibition that is due to open in May and I have also been busy with various commissions. My book a Brush With The Coast sold out just after Christmas and after a lot of emails from people asking if it was available I have decided to go for another print run. Hopefully they will be back on the website in the next few weeks. If you want to reserve one just drop me an email.   Another project that has been keeping me busy has been the design of two jigsaw puzzles that will be exclusively available to buy on my website. I, like many people, have found real solace in doing puzzles recently and thought it would be fun to make a couple of my own. If all goes well I will add more designs as the year goes on. There is something incredibly satisfying and even magical about seeing a painting transform into something else; a card, a print or in this case a jigsaw. I really like the idea that an image can be used in so many different ways.
Take care and here’s to enjoying the arrival of spring.
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Those of you who have read my sporadic blogs over the years will know that September is one of my favourite times of year. There is a slight bite to the wind on my morning walks and the smell of change in the air. After a very busy summer, Cornwall will begin to return to normality, with empty car parks and wild windswept beaches. I have avoided the crowds this summer and mostly stayed within a 20-mile radius of home, but with the arrival of autumn I will venture out again for long walks with Jess and Pea on the north coast and visits to Mousehole and Penzance. The last few months have been some of the busiest I can remember in the studio. A massive thank you to everyone who has bought books, cards and prints and all the commissions. The new edition of A Brush With The Coast has very nearly sold out - I have about 100 copies left of the full-colour book, and 200 of the paperback. If you were thinking of buying one as a gift for Christmas, or for yourself, don’t leave it too late. A huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review for my books on my website - it’s much appreciated. Looking forward to the next few months I am going update my website with a new set of cards, a new range of prints and a small collection of brand new paintings. I am also hoping to produce a new range of Christmas cards if time allows. And next year? I am having a show at Red Rag Gallery in Bath with 15 paintings, and my postponed show at The Old Coastguard in Mousehole will be going ahead in July. For the time being I am working on a collection of winter themed paintings for Red Rag Gallery's winter show:  I hope you are all well and bearing up ok. Let's hope this new month brings good news and good luck for us all.
Sash
The last two months have been both extraordinary and mundane. An artist's life is fairly solitary at the best of times and when I am in the studio working it's easy to forget what is going on in the world. Thank goodness I have a garden, the dogs and a husband I love, we are existing in a bubble and are content for now. I ventured out this morning to get the dogs some food and couldn’t stop smiling when I met the owner of the pet shop - it made me realise how long it has been since I’ve talked to someone other than my husband face-to-face, albeit 2m apart.
Work is keeping me occupied and I’ve had a number of very enjoyable commissions. I received word this morning that my exhibition at The Old Coastguard hotel has been postponed until next year, which is a real shame, but not unexpected. With the summer months ahead of me and no exhibition I will concentrate on various projects: I’m working on an illustrated alphabet and a series of small paintings for an online show at the end of the summer. I've also been playing around with more animations, including this one celebrating the wonderful NHS.
Take care everyone and keep safe,
Sash There’s an eye-catching headline (more on that later)! I’ve decided I’m not going to mention the C word, but instead am going to focus on what I’ve been up to recently from the comfort of my studio. Spring is always an exciting time of year, with the prospect of exhibitions, private views and a general upturn in sales. This spring I have had to change my expectations but there is still plenty to be excited about.
 Finally, the most exciting thing of all, the author Bill Bryson, has happily agreed for me to use his superb quote "Sasha Harding is an artistic genius!" in reference to my book A Brush With The Coast. Being the legend he is, he even went as far as to show a copy of my book to his agent and publisher. I exchanged a number of emails with him and had to keep pinching myself that I was actually corresponding with BILL BRYSON! Lots to be thankful for. Stay safe everyone, I’ll try to blog a bit more - I don’t have an excuse not to now. Sash 
I hope you have all had a superb Christmas and New Year. After a house full over Christmas and a couple of days doing nothing much but walking with Peanut and Jess, reading and catching up on Netflix shows, I am raring to go.
Lots is happening this year but the two big events are the Open Studios at the end of May and an exhibition with my old chum Gemma Pearce at my favourite hotel, The Old Coastguard in Mousehole, at the beginning of July. I will let you know nearer the time the dates for both.
I am embracing social media and have started making videos of my working process which are available to watch whenever you like on YouTube and Instagram. I’m going to show how I work from beginning to end, and discuss my methods in more detail as the months go on. Click here to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
Alongside the working videos I’ve started exploring the joys of stop motion animation. I have a feeling the characters in my paintings have always wanted to be able to move, and now I’m setting them free! When I first made one of my seagulls blink, using stop motion animation, it was a revelation and now I’m hooked!
I am tentatively planning on making my children's book Plop! into an animation this year using the weekends to work on it, but we will see…
Watercolour cutouts for stop motion animations
Recently I was asked to write a guest blog for Polpier & Penpol, a luxury guest house overlooking Mevagissey harbour. They asked me to write about the South West Coast Path, which is visible from the windows of the accommodation, as it crosses the harbour before snaking along wooded cliffs and away. Hopefully it will inspire some of you to get your walking boots on, whistle for your dog, and set off on your own walking adventure! Seven years ago, on a chilly autumn morning, I found myself catching my breath while looking down on the harbour at Mevagissey. Sniffing around my feet was my companion, a six-stone Rhodesian ridgeback dog called Jess. She and I had set off on foot from Minehead in Somerset 26 days earlier. In just under four weeks we’d hiked 361 miles, but we still had a long way to go. Ahead of us stretched another 270 miles to reach our destination, the end of the epic South West Coast Path.  The SWCP is one of the longest national trails in Britain, making its way across vast beaches and along exposed cliffs, through forests and over moors. With every mile there is the chance to see an array of wildlife, seals and dolphins, choughs and lizards, not to mention the many species of wild flowers. But for me the best thing is that the whole path is dog-friendly. It’s quite something to be able to set off with your four-legged chum on a ramble that could potentially go on for months. And that is exactly what Jess and I did. Walking side by side for seven weeks brought us together in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. We shared the same struggles, we slept together, ate (enormous quantities of food) together and limped in sync at the end of the day. We revelled when the sun came out and shrunk into ourselves when it rained, squeezed together under my umbrella. I looked out for her and she made me feel safe. On more than one occasion, as a lone woman, miles from anywhere, I was grateful to have Jess nearby. Her calm demeanour helped to dampen my overactive imagination, particularly my worries about the threat of werewolves whenever we encountered fog.  At the end of a gruelling day Jess was the perfect drinking buddy, in that she didn’t drink, so cost me very little. However her presence, curled up in front of a crackling fire, or begging for pork scratchings from a fellow punter, was a great way to start a conversation. I lost count of the number of times I heard “your dog’s gorgeous, what is she?” I loved being able to tell people that ridgebacks were originally bred to hunt lions. Something about the dichotomy between her fearsome heritage and laid-back demeanour made people smile. At the start of the trip I had worried over whether Jess would be allowed in the pubs along the way, but we were never turned away, in fact Jess was often shown to the cosiest spot, invariably in front of a fire. At those moments I was happy to tag along as her sidekick and reap the rewards of the best seat in the house.
We made the most of every mode of transport whilst on the coast path, from the steam train that raced alongside the River Dart, to buses and ferries and even a cliff railway at Babbacombe. Jess took each new vehicle in her stride and was soon leaping aboard ferries and jumping on and off buses like an 18 year old backpacker.  For all her poise, Jess did show her hunter’s instincts every now and then. One memorable time she ran full pelt towards the cliff edge after a herd of moth-eaten wild goats near Crackington Haven. Fortunately my panicked shout of “STAY!” stopped her in her tracks as the goats scarpered over a ridge. Another time, while walking through fields near Exmouth, she caught a young rabbit. Appalled, I screeched for her to “DROP IT!” and it bolted down the nearest hole, apparently unscathed. One afternoon, while I was sketching the fishing boats on the shingle shore at Budleigh Salterton, I heard an ominous crack and turned to see Jess treading on a crab. Luckily a nearby fisherman noticed the plight of the crustacean and pulled Jess off it before popping it back into a large blue bin. 
Seven years on, I look back at walking the South West Coast Path with Jess as one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. She is nine years old now and starting to go grey around her muzzle, and our walks are no longer measured in miles but minutes. Recently we’ve acquired a new addition to our pack, a miniature dachshund called Peanut who, despite her diminutive size, has boundless energy. While I’m looking forward to rediscovering the South West Coast Path with Pea, seeing it afresh through her eyes, I’ll never forget my 630-mile walk with Jess.   When I launched the revised edition of A Brush With The Coast and its paperback sister, I announced a prize draw - the first 100 people to buy a copy of either book from my online shop would be entered into a hat to win the original South West Coast Path map artwork from the book.
Well, I've drawn the winner and am pleased to say that its Samantha McLennay from Chester. Thanks to everyone who has bought my books so far, your support is much appreciated and I hope you're enjoying them! I watched a fascinating documentary on BBC Four last week called ‘The Forger Who Fooled The Nazis’. It told the unbelievable story of a Dutch artist called Han van Meegeren, who managed to fool the artistic establishment into authenticating a series of ‘missing’ Vermeer paintings that he had forged. For me, one of the most fascinating parts of the programme was when they showed his technique. This involved mixing Bakelite with oil paint to replicate the tough veneer of a very old painting, sourcing lapis lazuli and even baking the finished canvas in an oven. The actual paintings were hideous, with none of the lightness of touch and subtlety of a true Vermeer, but he still managed to fool those in the know. After making millions selling the fakes to institutions and galleries, van Meegeren was eventually unmasked and served just one year in prison. After his death he became a folk hero in the Netherlands, celebrated for his audacious crime. I’ve been recording my own process recently (no Bakelite involved) using time-lapse videos. Here are a series of images and a video, showing the different stages of one of my paintings. Once I’ve drawn out the image onto the canvas with a soft pencil I put a very thin wash of acrylic paint over the surface to fix the pencil and knock back the white gesso. Next, I block in the underpainting with acrylic paint. Using acrylic for the initial blocking-in means I don’t have to wait for it to dry over days, as I would if I used only oil paint. And so to the best bit: adding all the details, tweaking the colours and refining the overall composition in oil. It sounds straightforward, and it is, sometimes, but more often than not a missing piece of the puzzle throws the whole process. It could be the composition, the colours, the tones, even my mood. For every painting that goes like clockwork there are three that end up facing the wall! At least - unlike Van Meegeren - I don’t have the added worry of having to pop my finished canvases into a hot oven before persuading important-looking men with beards that my painting is a missing masterpiece by a 17th century Dutch artist. Recently I’ve been concentrating on this little 12 x 12” painting of a quirky shop overlooking Mousehole harbour. It is one of twenty paintings that I am going to be working on over the winter for a show next summer. I’ve given myself plenty of time to paint the show and this forward planning its reaping rewards. Unlike some artists I do not do well under pressure, I flourish when I have buckets of time to think and plan and carefully work out each painting. The theme for the exhibition is the coast between Mousehole and Marazion, with the magnificent St Michael's Mount as a constant focal point. I am looking forward to painting the Mount, as I have done many times before. An added bonus of the exhibition is that my oldest friend is also taking part. She and I have never, in all the years we’ve known each other, exhibited together and I’m really looking forward to seeing our work side by side.  I have a cooked lobster in my freezer that I use for reference when I’m doing a painting that has a lobster in it. Over the years he (or she) has starred in quite a few of my works, most recently a rock pool painting where he is intimidating a blenny. I love lobsters, I love eating them but mostly I love drawing them. They are an artist's dream: the claws, the beady eyes, the sweep of the antennae (with which they smell and feel their surroundings). When I’m painting a lobster I relish putting in the spots and spikes that cover the shell. Drawing a lobster is a challenge because of the intricate face (is that the right way to describe a lobster's visage?). There are all sorts of appendages and mouth parts as well as the antennae that force you to really look and study how it all works.
Every now and then, when I am rooting about in my freezer looking for something for supper I’ll come across the lobster, wrapped up tight in cling film, and get him out to draw. Each time he gets more whiffy, but he is holding up well and I’m sure he has a few more paintings in him yet. |
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