2012-02-09T11:03:08Z Jan Copyright 2012, Jan SPHPBLOG It hasn't been entirely without lifting a paint brush during October, but maybe not quite so fraught as usual. Finished the last workshop of the year at Gilbert White's House, and it has felt a bit 'holidayish' in the last few weeks. We are trying to work out the new card designs for 2012, so a lot of thought has been going on if not much else! (That's my story and I'm sticking to it - thinking is hard work!). And of course, daughter Kate had lovely baby Harry in October, and I couldn't get my head around much else...
Here is a design on it's way - called the "Cherry Picker" - one of several bird and flower cards that will be available for next season. Having spent so much time reading and being around Gilbert White's House, it seemed appropriate to include a few feathered friends.
The calendars are selling well this year, both in retail and direct, keeping us and the Post Office busy. Perhaps next year I will do the Christmas cards I keep humming and haa-ing and maybeing about. Meanwhile of course, NAFAS have produced the "Winter Flowers" as a card for general sale. (It was the President's card last year). So that's 2011 sorted. And I still see an occasional Christmas design pop up in Smith's on some card or another. Licence to use an image may only be a few years, but publishers get some mileage out of them!

I circulated info. on a workshop next March - and I do apologise to anybody that would have liked another date in Spring. The overspill from the first advertised workshop then filled another two. This leaves me with no more time for more before Chelsea. BUT! I do know that Gilbert White's House still has space on 17th March, and I will be doing more in July (think sweet peas hopefully). If you would like to know if anyone drops out from the Spring workshops (see events for dates), send me an email. If you didn't get an email in the first place, we got an awful lot of undelivered mail returned from the server!! Wrong dot or changed address? Let me know if you've slipped through the "web" net.

So exciting to have been picked for the floral range of 2011 by Greetings Today magazine. It was a lovely surprise. Also concentrates the mind on 2012 designs! See.....I am thinking....]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry111124-182902 2011-11-24T00:00:00Z 2011-11-24T00:00:00Z Does anyone recognise the venue for this workshop? Thought not (unless you were there of course). It's the lovely Clore Learning Centre at Wisley Gardens. We were allowed in there, and I hope that we will be able to use it again in the future. So bright and airy. Really enjoyed the Workshop which was at it's maximum, and as it took place during the Flower Show Week, Pheasant Acre Nursery let us have some magnificent gladioli and dahlias from their stand. Thanks to Rob and Helen for that. And Geoff won loads of brownie points for manfully manning OUR stand for the whole of Friday assisted by sidekicks Terry and Sally on the busiest day of the show. SO lucky with the weather too. It didn't rain with meaning until breakdown Sunday evening.

By the time we set up for Wisley of course, the Exhibition at Selborne was underway. Lovely Preview evening, beautiful weather for that too, lucky, lucky, and thankyou so much to everyone who came. I had a lot of camera wobble for some reason, so only have a few presentable images of an empty room! Nevermind, here's two walls to be getting on with!

The photos left and right are of some textile work and a "Gilberts Garden" necklace I made. Just because I love doing it. The fabric is available from www.spoonflower.com in the USA. It's a brilliant company that prints your designs and also sells them on to the rest of the community if you want. I was really pleased with the results, and I'm amazed that I've actually sold some.

Now it's back to fulfilling orders, more and MORE calendars going out - does that mean that Christmas is coming??

I'll be at Gilbert's tomorrow morning and Friday, and we have a workshop on Saturday at the Field Centre. Plans for next year's workshops are underway. Those here at the Studio haven't been given a date yet, but those at Gilbert White's and Wisley are now decided. I've put them on the Events Page, more info. from the venues.
]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110920-114155 2011-09-20T00:00:00Z 2011-09-20T00:00:00Z Nearly finished preparations for the exhibition....some things just never got there, but on the whole I think I've covered what I wanted to. Invitations to the Preview have gone out by email - so if you would like to come on Friday evening, and haven't yet received an invitation, please let me know. I don't have e-addresses for everyone I should have, and even when we do send out to our mailing list, sometimes a dot is in the wrong place and it bounces back again. Some just disappear into the ether completely.........So, if you'd like to keep in touch, just let me know.
On the right is a new design from the next range of cards - this is the whole card, back and front - I'm having a bit of a 'bird' session at the moment, very enjoyable. I expect it's Gilbert's influence at work.
Speaking of which, I felt that I should do something that would have been familiar during Gilbert's time, so I acquired some pieces of vellum to work on, and this is my first venture on the left. A bit different in way of technique, no big washes, using a very dry brush. Interesting experience, I'd like to do some more. Vellum is still being used by somne botanical artists as a matter of course. In particular I like the way Kate Nessler uses it.
I have to now decide which picture is going where. You'd think, maybe, get it there and then decide, but no. Experience tells me that it's best to have a PLAN of sorts, otherwise it can take forever....stressy too. I don't actually keep to the plan of course, but the illusion helps. AND labels, and LISTS for the gallery/museum. Painting soon begins to feel the easy bit. Thank goodness for the framer living so close to home and being obliging! (Yes, I expect you know it's the long suffering husband, what a hero I say.)
I'd better go and get his lunch and a nice cup of tea...........]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110829-102615 2011-08-29T00:00:00Z 2011-08-29T00:00:00Z I hope the coming weekend is going to be good and sunny - there's such a lot planned for this event other than the absolutely astounding scene inside the church (not been before? You won't believe it...). I've added the link here for more info.www.bignorweed.org
I would love to show you more of how it looked in 2009 - other than this very boring tent, but I'll let you download the brochue yourself, and look for some much better photos than mine on google.
Be there if you can!]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110627-164337 2011-06-27T00:00:00Z 2011-06-27T00:00:00Z well that's it for another year........moving on....







]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110627-163206 2011-06-27T00:00:00Z 2011-06-27T00:00:00Z The canvases went so very well at Chelsea, I've only just managed to get them on the website - on the Limited Editions page. Orders will be going out as promised about 10 days after the show, but I'll contact prior to despatch of course.
More about Chelsea week in a day or so - we've managed to get all the card orders out to the retailers now, so perhaps a breathing space to show you all our special piccys! (Well Geoff's anyway).
Back soon.........]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110603-192630 2011-06-03T00:00:00Z 2011-06-03T00:00:00Z Well, all the reprints and new cards here ready for next week - and the RHS have started stocking them at their gardens already......and look, here's Millie on the right, blissfully unaware that there is some URGENCY about the packing situation....a dog's life?
The new notecards and 2012 calendars are going out the door too - they'll be at Chelsea, and on our return, I will put them on the website.
The new limited edition canvases have turned out really well, so a colourful stand I hope! Where it's all going to fit is another matter...
It IS ages since I did this blog, and I can't even think where the time has gone. I promise I haven't been slacking or drifting around the garden smelling the apple blossom. If the masses of flowers on the fruit trees were anything to go by, it's definitely going to be a bumper crop this autumn. (I quietly groan at the thought of peeling all those apples and freezing them).
So back to preparations...and look forward to seeing any of you ...come and say hello....


**STAND EA4, EASTERN AVENUE, CHELSEA FLOWER SHOW 2012**




Next instalment will be on our return - Geoff will have done his "Hello/OK" photoshoot on press day - and we all have to go through that "oh you know he was in that thingy programme...whatshisname" bit!
]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110517-174529 2011-05-17T00:00:00Z 2011-05-17T00:00:00Z A lovely day on Friday too, with a workshop painting daffodils, anemones and tulips. I always seem to make such a TRIAL of getting the flowers out on the right day, but mostly they behaved themselves this time (and the students were wonderful too). A LITTLE more eating of chocolate fudge cake would have been helpful, but our children were here at the weekend to demolish leftovers. (I do feed them other times, but you wouldn't think it).
I am painting some anemones at the moment, but I have just finished, out of season of course, this picture of welsh poppies and vetch. I felt the card range needed some more yellow, so cropping this image will be what I'm looking for I hope. Nearly got the six ready for the printers, and there'll be some reprints too. Might even manage a few more to the collection before Chelsea. Yes, I must be feeling more like it! Hoping to get the notecard images away by early next week too. I think they are going to look great in smart wallets etc.
Will be getting back to Gilbert white's House - now I've stopped startling everyone with coughing fits - I've missed the snowdrops, but in time for the Spring rush, and I'm looking forward to it.
Gilbert says on 12th March 1770:
"The golden-crowned wren (regulus cristatus), sings. His voice is as minute as his body."
I think that's a goldcrest he's talking about - and I haven't seen one this year, but I've certainly heard the dawn chorus beginning to make its presence felt. Lovely!]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110313-122616 2011-03-13T00:00:00Z 2011-03-13T00:00:00Z With the customary out of sinc. painting I try so hard to avoid, but always seem to end up with - here are the final three stages of the painting "FALL". Well there it is, Autumn has finally caught up.
Next painting well under way, and it will be no surprise that it isn't seasonal either....more next week when I've got rid of this very seasonal cold....








]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110225-123138 2011-02-25T00:00:00Z 2011-02-25T00:00:00Z Some techno difficulties, some absentmindedness, some distractions...that's where January 2011 went... here we are back in the swing of the botanical year again. Snowdrops and crocuses are up, and the occasional blue sky (not to mention that it encourages blue sky THINKING too), makes me believe that Spring is coming. Which will produce my normal excitement at all the "budding" going on, but my despair at watching lots of it go over without me catching it on paper yet again. It will ever be so no doubt!
It rained last Sunday however, so we took a trip to the Glasshouse at Wisley to see the butterflies. SO lovely. Still there until the 27th February if you want to see them. I felt quite overwhelmed when one attached itself to me. It was amazingly light, like a feather. Wisley still hadn't any printed copies of workshop dates, but I'm pleased to say it's now easy to find on the website, at last... RHS Wisley
Started during Winter, this is the stage by stage "FALL" painting begun at Gilbert White's last November. I have a paper carrier full of bits collected around then, and the painting has grown around the first oak twig. Hopefully it will be exhibited at this year's SBA show in London. This is a method of composing I enjoy, it looks random, but I assert it isn't! It starts with the usual rough sketch, but because it can grow as it goes, it allows for a lot of happy accidents along the way. I find it maintains my interest probably more than the really planned composition. With that sort of painting, I try to keep 2 -3 paintings on the go to keep up impetus on all of them.

The "pansy" article is now out in the Spring edition of the "Flower Arranger". Available from NAFAS or the larger WHSmiths and other newsagents. Amanda the designer did her usual excellent job of sorting out my pictures and text into a semblance of order. She makes it all look so sensible and appealing at the same time.]]> http://www.janharbon.com/index.php?entry=entry110219-095712 2011-02-19T00:00:00Z 2011-02-19T00:00:00Z