This morning I sat on the floor in a square of flickering, leaf filtered, sunlight and felt the strangeness of an empty house for the first time in 7 months. The heat rushes in when I open the doors and everything feels steamy after the storm yesterday.Since I last wrote I've emerged like a nervous rabbit, into " The Easing", to work for three days a week in the bookshop; experiencing the complete reversal of the normal state of things because I was briefly the only person in the house going out to work, coming back grumpy and demanding my slippers, pipe and dinner (during lockdown I never left the valley and still haven't visited a supermarket so it's been quite stressful at times). Wearing the plastic face shield all day,  combined with my varifocals,  means that hours after getting home I still feel like I have a hat on and trippy vision that might necessitate  a trip to Barnard Castle...Today however, Rupert has gone back to work at Outward Bound and Sara is having her first day alone as a bookseller (since she moved north again we have been sharing jobs occasionally while she continues to search for her own path). Tomorrow will be a holiday cottage cleaning day for one of my neighbours so this is my time to catch up on my "real" job, the creative me, the one who gets lost in the gaps between days.August is fading Meadowseet, Heather and Bilberries, horrible Horseflies, late hay and the first signs of the bracken turning. Walking back down the valley last week I noticed the tinge of russet and felt quite overwhelmed by the relentless march of the natural world and its cycles, while for a lot of us mere humans it feels as though our lives have been put on pause. It seemed like only a few weeks ago that we'd talked about watching for Catbells turning green in the spring. I've tried not to think about it too much, but of course that means I think about it all the time - the way almost a year has passed and so much has changed. More than ever the feeling of having lost precious time but also of having gained so much and needing to process it somehow.I thought I'd done quite a lot of new work in the bright sunshine of Spring but when I looked at them again recently, because the special circular mounts had arrived, I found that I only liked one or two and then of course I started with the "honestly Kim you had all that time and all that sunshine, why didn't you create mountains of work?". At least, of the ones I have completed , I am unusually pleased with how they turned out. I like the stitching on this hare and her joyful leap over the Yarrow. Now, how to go about selling work without the shop window of art fairs and exhibitions? This blog no longer has the reach it once did and social media is a tightrope walk - if I mention things are for sale my posts are much less popular than the ones featuring rainbows or wild swimming or loaves of bread. Luckily there are bright sparks on the horizon with a possible nerve wracking secret project and an invitation to be part of a winter exhibition at Harding House in Lincoln again.One day recently members of Cumbria Printmakers had planned a socially distanced drawing trip to Holehird Gardens  but of course it rained and rained and even in Cumbria it was too much,  so instead we all agreed to draw at home and share our day via WhatsApp. I hadn't done any observational drawing for ages but I managed a page of ink and gesso and pencil,  looking out at my soggy plant pots. The thing I enjoyed most about this was taking small sections of it later and  enlarging them to use as backgrounds for other things.I'm not a painter but sometimes I think it would be fun to make big textural  canvasses like this...Instead I made a digital collage using other sketchbook images and came up with this ...I entered the Wraptious competition and a few people actually bought the design as a cushion so I think I might get some giclee prints made of it to add to my website shop. I entered 4 other designs too and voting has ended so fingers crossed, you never know.Believe it or not I spend more time thinking about writing than thinking about drawing or making things so it is worrying that I do very little of either! How on earth do people write books and have jobs or other people living with them?! In my head are some characters and some rambling stories and also some thoughts which won't quite arrange themselves into a Thing and instead there is bread to make or someone else words to read or more recently masks to make. I'm counting it as a small victory that this blog post has been completed during daylight and that I can now put the kettle on and tick this off my To Do list.Thank you so much for lending me your precious time and reading this. xReading : The Short Knife  by Elen Caldecott

You could follow the arrow that says "Starling Dodd" and find "Witchmountain" there in the trees; the last house on the mountain and goodness it's really felt like it lately - the last house on the way up but the first for the wind to hammer as it crashes down the valley. The outline of these hills has always made me think of sleeping dragons and I think one woke up during those Named Storms, it wasn't happy to be disturbed. Part of the lane has washed away and various bits of the house leaked - are leaking- (because as I mentioned last time, this is a Jumblie's Sieve kind of a place) but it's quiet now, the heating boiler is fixed and I'm trying to be less like Bill Nighy's Mr Woodhouse in Emma, constantly anxious about draughts.The picture above was taken from the top of Catbells last weekend. We set out in brightness and blue sky, with packed lunch and flasks of hot Ribena, only to be ambushed by vicious hail storms which I'm hoping will have the same effect as an expensive microdermabrasion treatment. The snowdrops are still hanging in there, leggy and battered but it's nearly daffodil time and hopefully a there's a gentle Spring on the way for all those places so badly affected by the floods.Now that I've talked about the weather I have to try and order my thoughts; what to say? What to leave out? What to paint a brighter shade so that I sound like a misery? I think a lot about writing (when I'm not writing) and art (when I'm not ... doing it) and what I think, often, is that anyone who tries to make a living by their imagination and creativity, or even just lets their words or images out into the wild with no thought of financial gain, is pretty damn brave, or crazy, because there are Other People out there and they have Opinions. I remember thinking this when I went to a book event in London a while ago, the brave and fearless authors who'd spent months alone with their writing, had to come out before a crowd to pitch their books to us (the booksellers) and then there would be critics, then sales figures and then the pot holed path towards a new book. It's the same for all artists who make a thing in private and then offer it up like a slippery newborn for inspection. You don't get to just go home, switch off and watch Eastenders after a day at work, it's always there, it is you.If that all sounds a bit too heavy and serious it's only because I'm in a thinking mood after I was interviewed this week by a lovely woman from a local magazine. Little old me in my studio (for studio read kitchen table). I've never been interviewed in person about my work before, so of course I felt like an utter fraud, a slightly batty hermit; naturally the cat popped in and out with a dead vole and true to form I rambled, over shared (possibly) and only remembered what I should have said after she'd gone. I'll let you know if it makes the editorial cut, I hope so despite my shyness.So what should I have said? What is the right way to behave? Up sell, up speak and always look in control?  You see I still feel as though some honesty is vital. What use is it to anyone if the picture of "life up a mountain making art" is airbrushed in such a way that other people misunderstand and possibly fall down the same pot holes, I have a duty to put metaphorical cones out!What's real today...*It took me 3 hours to light the fire so I've done no creative work , have a coal dust moustache and if there's a power cut we're stuffed because I used all the candles (ran out of fire lighters)*I'm realising that because my prints take ages to make I sell them too cheaply.*Sometimes I just want to read a book and eat crumpets instead.*Self promotion is so hard and feels like being everything you were brought up not to be.Anyway, that's the end of the soul searching section, except to say that while I was talking to Ellie I realised that I became most passionate whilst talking about other people's work and businesses, it definitely feels more comfortable. We also talked about the solitude needed, in my case at least, to come up with ideas and inspiration, but that doesn't mean isolation. The support of (and for) others is vital. This week although I've seen no one I've felt absolutely lifted and supported by my slowly growing network of creative friends who all face similar days when the fire (literal or creative) won't light and their muse has gone missing. You're all amazing.Hey look! I did a mug shot! This is so rare and I'm squirming a bit but here I am, only a slightly airbrushed startled rabbit. The finished "big" versions of The Ugly Duckling and The Secret Garden which I'd done for Elspeth Tavacci arrived the other week. Elspeth is working on making a version of The Secret Garden which will work as one of her, Purple Pomegranate, card books but these are the Story House versions, designed for teaching English as a foreign language. The books have all sorts of activities in the back such as word searches and creative writing prompts  as well as vocabulary notes throughout which I hadn't expected , it really is nice to see the finished thing all printed and real.This was one of my favourite pages ...Anyway, I have just 5 copies but I could spare one, so I thought maybe I could do a giveaway like I used to in the Olden Blog Days? Is that still a thing? To enter just visit my website  and let me know in the comments below which is your favourite card so I can include it with the book (if you sign up to the newsletter too that 's an extra entry - and if you buy a card you are a hero). I'll pick a winner at random at the end of March so that the winner can read the book before the new film comes out on April 10th!This is my current favourite and I'm thinking of getting myself a pea green boat if it doesn't stop raining soon. Good luck xReading : "Here in the Real World" by Sara Pennypacker.  I love a good children's book and this one - admittedly chosen at first for its cover by Jon Klassen - is turning out to be about all the things I love, gardens, friendship, nature and finding a space to become yourself.Listening to " The Toyshop" by Robert Dinsdale and the theme song to The Detectorists by Johnny Flynn [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDunLPWD2Xw&w=560&h=315]

One night last month everyone in the Lake District, maybe even the entire North, looked up at the sky and reached for their phones and cameras; it was a sunset of such wide screen perfection that the drive back from wherever we'd been (no one could remember once the sky started showing off) took twice as long as usual while we stopped and started several times to admire the changing hues, the way the road turned rose jam pink, the Violet Cremes melting into Turkish Delight. It made me wish I could paint, really paint, in a way that had the same effect - wow that makes me sound  a bit like a megolamaniac but I just mean to say, to be able to create an image that really meant something and sent shivers up your spine in the same way a piece of music or an epic sunset can.Have you ever felt moved to tears by a painting or illustration? It feels strangly disloyal to pose the question, as an art lover, but while I famously weep at the end of almost every film regardless, feel physically shaken by certain music and get goosebumps wandering through glorious landscapes I rarely get this from a "picture". I feel as though I should, the way people say sitting in the Rothko Room can affect the emotions.Here's a still from something that made me shed a tear this week; LedbyDonkeys made a powerful and emotional statement, projecting still images and film onto the White Cliffs of Dover and Big Ben on the day Britain sadly left the European Union. It was moving and comforting. If you missed it you canwatch it here - a lesson in dignity and respect.Away from politics and biblical sunsets I managed to stagger to the end of January, complete the scary "financial" pages in my planner with £100 profit (does that mean get a pony yet?) and ride the waves of turbulence caused by the annual round of exhibition rejections. January is peak exhibition application season which is particularly tough as it's meant to be too early in the year to be feeling despair! On Penny Hunt's recommendation, to give myself a kick up the bum, I've started listening to the Art Juice podcast with Alice Sheridan and Louise Fletcher which is like having a couple of friends sitting at the table while I'm working, discussing some of the questions most people who make stuff have asked themselves... Is making art a selfish thing to do? Why do women in particular often feel guilty about making time for themselves to be creative? What if you don't have space for a studio and how do you define success?One thing I've been thinking about this past month is, does it matter if I enjoy working in several quite separate styles? You might have noticed a lack of cyanotype images on my social media posts recently and I think if I'm honest that might be why the likes of Printfest reject me every year. I probably don't come across as a master printmaker or a "fine artist" (there's already a super fine one of those in the family) because my website isn't minimal and arty; it needs to showcase the smaller things that I sell, such as cards and printed ceramics, because otherwise I can't afford to keep doing this. I realised the other day when I was delivering work to the gift shop of a lovely gallery, that what I really wanted was to be one of the people with "proper art" in the exhibition upstairs- that or the writer/illustrator of a totally gorgeous, critically acclaimed picture book that warmed the hearts of children, adults and small bears everywhere (yup, megolamaniac masquerading as a mouse!). It's a nuicence not knowing what you want to be when you grow up, when you're nearly 53, but the whole point of being self employed is meant to be the freedom, so for now I shall refuse to be piqeonholed.I'm loving pen and ink at the moment, obsessing about treehouses as reading rooms and desperately trying to work out if I can weave a story out of the random sketches, mismatched characters and doodles I seem to make at this time of year (oh how I miss those snowed in days on the moor top). I've started using Pinterest again to gather some thoughts but only in short, carefully measured doses as I'm already old enough that I jump at my refection, I don't want to emerge from a labyrinthine browsing session like Rip Van Winkle. Here's my new Treehouse Board, take care, leave a thread to guide you home...Hopefully some of these ink and watercolour drawings might lead to some cyanotype pieces as well,  in time for the events I'm doing later in the Spring, starting with a visit to the Hearth Art Centre in Northumberland in April for their next Art Fair.Well, it's late now; time to head to bed, where lately the noise of the wild wind wrestling with the giant sycamores has made it feel like being out at sea in a small boat. The curtains swaying in the breeze and the mysterious windy patch on the stairs all add to the impression that our house is more Jumblie's Sieve than Pea Green Boat...Until next time xReading: "Spinning Silver" by Naomi Novic and listening to "Things in Jars" by Jess Kidd.