Above is a detail of the small preparatory drawing I made in 2015 for Before There Were Saturdays. I have it hanging in a frame in my workroom and recently the more I look at the top section pictured here, the more I want to apply this way of drawing to the Architect's Garden ideas. I'm not sure why, but I'm thinking a lot again about the zoological engravings of Ernst Haeckel; perhaps because of their symmetry and structure, which suggest a certain kind of architecture.

As well as the architectural interest I am curious to start using the whippy, scribbly shapes pictured above on the left, which were experiments in a sketchbook of 2015.
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I think there is another reason for the urge to get onto work like this again: I have been very busy starting a new set of very painterly small floral Binky McKee work with monsters and funny dogs (on those papers I was preparing the other day) which I am loving to bits, but as a balance to all the joy and figuration libre my patient side feels inclined to start something altogether slower and more rational - that's the beauty of being two artists instead of just one, you get to do the best of everything. It's restful and refreshing to change things about, and seems to benefit both disciplines.

Sad news today. Farewell, Prince Philip, aged 99.

These pressed tin jelly moulds must date back to the late '50s or early '60s, they have been in the kitchen for as long as I can remember. My mother used to make pink blancmanges with them every Easter for years, the bunnies would nestle in a field of green decorated with flowers and little mallow toadstools sprinkled in coconut. As a child I didn't like the bunnies to be cut up, so when offered some I would choose just a tiny part of its foot (!) poor rabbit. The family of five moulds comprises two 1 pint parents, a big sister, and two tiny babies.
I don't think I have ever used these moulds myself, so this year I thought I would give it a try. I made jelly the usual way with gelatine crystals and orange juice (no need for added sweeteners) and filled a 1 pint mould with just enough left over to make a baby one, too.

I turned big bunny out onto a plate and garnished with shredded lettuce to look like grass and Dr Oetker mini flowers. I can't remember what my mother used for grass, I assume it was lettuce, but I must have left it next to the jelly too long because the orange jelly was infused with lettuce fragrance which didn't taste very nice! I don't remember that from my childhood. It looked very pretty and Easter festive, though.

Preparing papers for painting this week it was lovely to work with real, smelly materials again. A mixture of monotype, tonking, scumbling and colour washes filled my work space with the wonderful aromas of printing ink, white spirit, and damp paper - music to my nose, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor, infinitely preferable to so-called room fresheners. I am adding extra texture to my primer in the form of whiting, much as I used to at art school when I bagged marble dust from the sculpture department for the purpose. I am told whiting is the same kind of thing as marble dust, but it's not quite as grainy; not such a bad thing, perhaps, as my student paintings often resembled sandpaper. I was a bit worried about potential adhesion issues, but I needn't have been because afterwards when cleaning down my monotype plate (a big slab of toughened glass) I discovered lumps of the whiting addition primer so thoroughly adhered to the glass I struggled to remove it with a scraper. The primer itself is acrylic gesso with high flexibility so there shouldn't be any issues with the heavy, card-like Fabriano Rosaspina I use.

Oh yes, the indescribable joy of warmer weather and spring suddenly arriving meant being able to get back into my studio. During the winter it was just too cold to work in the north-facing room, hence the digital sketchbook of late. Above is a photo of a little actual, real, paper sketchbook I started for Binky's monsters and ikebana. The freedom, the mess, the fragrance of real materials again! 
On Friday B was working in the garden when he spotted a strange occurrence in the sky - a perfect lasso (or lightbulb?) made by a passing aircraft. Always curious about what the aeroplanes are up to I had Flightradar to hand - look at that flight path! Joyriding perhaps?

I have been pinching some of the textures I use for my Binky illustration on my iPad to mock up a few ideas for the Architect's Garden work. I drew a sheet of brickwork and trellis marks in Procreate 'by hand' (using a stylus like a pencil, Procreate being primarily designed for drawing) which look great over the rough stony texture of a scan of a monotype drawing. I collected scans of the templates work I was making last summer and a few other bits and pieces which can be used in digital collages.
Working digitally is a quick and convenient way to see if I have anything going on, but I can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can get back into my studio. It's too cold to work in there at the moment - north facing, great for the light about nine months of the year, but dark and perishing in the winter.

The other day I stumbled across some notes I made about a million years ago on Polynesian stick charts and didn't want to forget them again. I was busy designing patterns so I just grabbed what I was using at the time (hence the linen texture) and made a few hasty sketches - here they all on top of each other and full of digital wobble. Distracted? Me? Noooo.