Over time I have made a few works inspired by the Voynich manuscript, but I have never before got in really close and traced an image. Working on my iPad made it a delightful and natural process. It was fascinating to trace the movements of an unknown hand from the past, a kind of collaboration with an unkown person (or persons) spanning the centuries. I was surprised to see how my tracing above actually looked rational and somehow complete, making a kind of sense (at least to me) that the wildness of the original doesn't. That may or not be a good thing.

I do ask myself the question, would it be so interesting if the manuscript wasn't such an unfathomable mystery? I love Culpeper's Herbal, too, but not to such a degree that I want to draw it. I can't remember when exactly I started using asemic text in my work, but I think that may also have originated in my interest in the Voynich manuscript.
Pictured below are some watercolours based on the manuscript I made in 2012. The photographs look fuzzy because the paintings are on semi-opaque Japanese tissue, so they cast a shadow on the mounting board below. They are animated and spirited, and impossible to photograph clearly. I was interested in weird roots back then.

In the light of the recent discovery of some of my lost student paintings, you may well be wondering how I came to work the way I do today. It's rather different to the huge, thickly painted canvasses I was making in the mid-80s, almost the opposite in fact.

Changes in my work began as soon as the mid 80s, and arose from practicality, time, health, location and finances. After finishing the Picker Fellowship at Kingston, Surrey, in 1986, I did take on a large ACME studio in London's Hackney Wick area for a while, but that was the last time I rented a studio; the need to earn a salary meant entering full-time employment, which in turn meant I was paying rent on a studio I didn't have time to use. I had already discovered I preferred working in the privacy of my own domestic environment; during my MA year at Chelsea nearly all my supporting work was made on paper in my flat, so even during that productive period I was only going into the studio to create large canvasses.

When the European touring exhibition Germinations 4 ended in 1988 my works, including Do's and Don'ts (the large 1985 painting shown above, left) were delivered together with works by the other 3 selected British artists to the Royal College of Art for collection. I simply didn't have the wherewithal to collect mine, and so they were abandoned at the RCA. The same fate met a lot of my other large works at the time. It sounds sad, but it was impossible for me to move 8ft canvasses on their stretchers around London, and in fact my interests had already moved on and new work using different media was already underway. I realised if I wanted to keep my work around it had to be portable.

I was delighted when, quite out of the blue last week, I received a message via my contact form which was actually nothing to do with the 100s of bitcoin spams I get on a regular basis. It was from a very nice, polite gentleman who had found a roll of paintings in his son's attic. The one pictured above had my name written on the back, together with the title 'Studio Floor' and the year 1985.
I recognised it instantly. I painted it at the Bagley's Lane studios at Chelsea School of Art, London, during my MA year, using the working title 'Charity Soup'; I gave it a more formal title for the degree show in 1985, hence 'Studio Floor'. The image above is a photo he sent so I could identify it - a far better image captured on a modern phone than I managed to get at the time with an old Zenith camera with a light leak!

A charming correspondence began when he expressed an interest in finding out more about me and the painting, and what was going through in my head at the time; he kindly sent another two photos of works found in the roll. One was an experiment where I had glued monoprints on paper onto a canvas and tried to use it for a basis for a painting - the only time I ever attempted that as a technique. That's just as well because I didn't make a very good job of it, and still don't see how it could possibly have progressed. I don't remember much about sticking it together and it's a very confused, unresolved work but the objects represented in the monotypes (which I still have today, and use in different ways) are unquestionably mine, depicted in the style I used at that time.

The jewel which emerged, however, was the painting shown above of a wooden cabinet. Today it's buckled and distressed from the canvas being removed from its stretcher and abandoned in a roll for a good many years, but here it is nonetheless. It was hailed at the time for having a peculiarly Scottish light and colour, painted while I was homesick in London. Weirdly, I was only just talking about this painting the other day when B (a skilled carpenter) and I were out walking the dog on a very Scottish winter morning, surrounded by all those colours; he had seen it back in the 80s and remarked on the accuracy of detail depicting the cabinet's construction.

It has been wonderful to see these works again. I am so grateful that this gentleman, a complete stranger, took the time and trouble to look me up and seek more information on my student work of the 80s, and return them to me in digital form. Thank you so much KGP, it was lovely to meet you!

Ten days ago the frosts set in overnight. I just transferred photos from my phone of this unbelievably beautiful tree, which appeared the next morning on the surface of a glass table-top in the garden on one of my wrought iron designs forged by Stan Pike; I hadn't held much hope for the quality of the photos at the time, but they captured it beautifully. I can't imagine how the ice trees formed with such intricacy and consistency, but what a gift from Nature.

I absolutely love the work of Howard Finster. Like many people, I first encountered it on Talking Head's Little Creatures album art. I was reminded of it while making the music drawings last month for Open Eye's On a Small Scale exhibition; something about the distribution and scale of the different elements which make up Finster's works is not dissimilar to the way I was thinking at the time, and I have been pondering it since delivering the works to the gallery.

The latest drawing in my new series of work. It was impossible to take an evenly lit photograph today in spite of excellent iPhone, the drawing is more delicate than it looks in the above photo. I tried scanning but I couldn't get the scanner to work in a typical day of technology versus me. After spending the morning investigating drivers and repeated attempts to make a scan, B fixed the scanner just by looking at it, urgh! so annoying. However, the scanned details shown below are much closer to the original.
It's plain to see I would much rather be drawing than photographing and publishing them. On that subject, there has been quite a commotion in the artists' quarter of Instagram recently ...

... to all our American friends!

I took this photo 4 years ago at the Edinburgh Christmas market and something about it makes me think of fireworks and celebrations, so very appropriate for today. Only 4 years ago, though. So many unbelievable events have happened since then, it feels more like 10 years ago.

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 am really into yellow and black at the moment, and layering semi-opaque papers over the drawings. I had a lovely busy weekend, my godson Theo (B's son) and his friend Dan drove up from MK in their drift cars. On Saturday B and the boys went out west to the mountains and made a very impressive convoy, B in the Lotus and the boys in their crazy cars - lots of colour, stickers, low-down chassis and throaty growly engines. They turned a few heads as they pulled away. I stayed at home with the dog, did some drawing and housework, watched Gavin and Stacey on iPlayer, and cleaned the windows - glamour and grit indeed. It was so nice to have the distraction from the world news for a couple of days.

I took a trip to Edinburgh to deliver 4 Confused Flags for the Open Eye Gallery Christmas exhibition On a Small Scale, during which the walls of one gallery are banked with A5 works. The new flags are a lot larger than the miniatures I made for the Artobotic vending machines, although still small at A5. The beauty of delivering small works is that I can carry them on the train, and the train journey to Edinburgh has been one of my favourite things to do since I was a little girl, so here are 7 great Edinburgh-themed things I saw this week:
1. I never get tired of the views from the Forth Rail Bridge. On one side there is the expanse of the river with twin drilling rigs in the distance towards the estuary and the North Sea, and on the other the two road bridges and views to Grangemouth, the Ochil Hills and Ben Ledi towards the west.
2. The new Queensferry Crossing is splendid. There are great views from the rail bridge, and the sight of all three bridges is stirring. I was at the opening of the Forth Road Bridge in 1964, aged 5, and remember the days of the old ferry when there was only the rail bridge - what a time to be alive this is! Visit Scotland has some great images of the three bridges here.
3. Edinburgh has begun to celebrate Christmas vibrantly, with the market and plenty of other events and attractions. See what’s on at Edinburgh’s Christmas.
4. The massive St James project is going to be so exciting and impressive when it is done. It has a brilliant website here.
5. Edinburgh Trams. Their presence graces the city with a most international atmosphere; they even have their own Wikipedia page.

An exciting creative time! I have always found autumn to be a time of high mental energy and fresh starts, possibly because of the association with the new academic term. It’s a time of year I loved all through years of school and as a student, and still each year as it approaches I get the thrill. It brings double excitement for me right now: firstly, the Brexit Art Machines being installed in London for the month - and my Confused Flags are in the stacks to vend! I really am so excited! I am making more at the moment. Wobbly borders, misfit motifs, double-sided issues, foggy substrates and crossed meaning are my favourite themes, along with very some confused stars and stripes. Here is one of a star nudging boundaries:

<<<<<<<ARTOBOTIC!>>>>>>>>

I am delighted to have been invited to contribute to Artobotic's Brexit Art Machine!
Artobotic place repurposed vending machines filled with small brown boxes containing original art at selected venues.