I just wanted to show you the work in progress so far. I reckon there's an average of about 60 flowers in each corner - and with 5 petals each, that's about 900 petals I've cut out. So you can imagine my hand really really aches right now! Anyway, I still haven't made a decision about what's going in the middle - it certainly won't be staying like this. Maybe a little folksy scene with a tree? We'll see. Watch this space ...

English Folk Art (for a change!)

I've decided to take a little break from my usual traditional American folk art style and do something a bit more English for a change. I'm not entirely sure what an English folk art style is exactly (maybe there isn't such a thing - but I'm sure there is!), so I guess this is just my own style on the very English tradition of Morris Dancing.

When I did an internet search for English folk art, such a mishmash of things came up - half of which weren't even English - that it's difficult to see a generic style. American folk art is very distinctive, as is Scandinavian, German, Dutch etc - but seemingly not English. If anyone can enlighten/educate me otherwise, I'd be really interested. All I really came up with was barge painting and pub signage.

Anyway, this latest piece of mine is going to be a circular dance of Morris men and village girls, the corners will be blossom trees and the centre - well (as is usual for me) that's still to be decided!

Here's another one to add to the set - and a photo of them in little IKEA frames. Cute.

Folk Art Rural Scene Papercut

I've got to get cracking with producing a substantial amount of work for the Windsor Contemporary Art Fair in November. I've got quite a lot of larger pieces already, so I think I need to concentrate on finishing a few smaller pieces. I cut this one today - it took me about three hours and has left me with a very stiff hand! It's a baby version of the papercut I completed a while back. This one measures 11cm x 16cm.

Collage for a change

I've been loving the work of Linda Solovic recently and I was inspired to create a few collages of my own. Here are the results. Some are better than others, but I really enjoyed making them.

If you want to see more of Linda Solovic, check her out here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lindasolovic