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.

I've just come in from a late evening wander up the valley, raising moths with every footfall and, for the first time in months,  feeling the familiar squish of damp ground underfoot instead of  bone jarring, cracked earth. I went down to the beck and stood knee deep in the water for ages (a regular post migraine activity) gazing up at the mountain who was looking benign and majestic in the warm evening light. I squiggle toes in the slippery pebbles and clamber about on the bank where the rocks are warm still and the bracken prematurely tinted with Autumn; almost tempted to go back for a tent so that I can sleep next to the water. On the way home I stop to talk to my favourite tree thinking how precious it is to be able to do this, being alone in such a beautiful place momentarily lets me be the child I still am inside since there's nothing about to show me I'm actually a small 51 year old woman acting like a lunatic talking to trees and wallowing about in the beck dressed in pants and a hoodie. Something about this summer's heatwave has me reliving childhood memories of golden barefoot summers in the 70's, just as it's revealing ancient earthworks, drowned villages and lost gardens. This is the summer they will talk about for years to come.As ever I started writing a blog post in May and have had to scrap the whole thing because so much has happened in the mean time. A proper summer  for the first time in 4 years and the generous loan of a Canadian canoe has meant we've felt extra lucky to be living in the Lake District - what we lack in financial security or a packed social life has to some degree, been balanced out by the priceless joy of a clandestine night on Wild Cat Island, a picnic supper on Ullswater ( even though we canoed double the distance because we forgot to pack the gas for the tiny miniature stove and had to go back!)  or an afternoon gliding about in the swimming "pots" of Borrowdale.[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkim5cBgSW9/?taken-by=witchmountain[/embed]I've just returned from my weekend at Art in the Pen in Thirsk where we all nearly melted in the cattle market under the sweltering North Yorkshire sun! This year I didn't do so well ( many people said sales were down on previous years)  but I think I enjoyed myself more. My pen neighbour Hannah Sawtell was particularly lovely and we had good chats about politics, future directions and the joys/trials of parenthood/cat caring/empty nests. I fell in  love with several of her prints but the one I had to have included a quote from a favourite REM song and someone looking slightly uncertain on the edge of  a moonlit pool ...[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/BaBckyog10F/?taken-by=hannahjainesawtell[/embed]We did a little artist swap which sadly is the only way I can own the art I love at the moment. I sometimes feel like such a hypocrite going on about #JustaCard all the time and then leaving the "pens" of people whose work I've admired for years without buying anything but it really would have been madness to spend the small profit I'd made because that will be needed to pay for the materials and costs of the next event. It really is hand to mouth sometimes and times are hard for many of the creative people I met. Rupert had helped me set up and take down my pen and commented afterwards that he really felt for those who hadn't done so well "...they all work so hard, they're all makers and they make the world a better place." The overriding feeling was positive though, despite the heat, the farmyard aromas, the slow sales and all. The visitors were all enthusiastic and full of praise and the other artists full of camaraderie and humour; I love the concept of artists taking over the cattle market for a weekend and replacing the animal s**t with things of beauty, it makes me smile for so many reasons !... As usual it's taken me an age to write half of what I wanted say and its now tomorrow! I've just been into Keswick to post out some orders, including some of the cyanotype workshop kits I've put together, and got side tracked by a rarely open antiquarian bookshop. I came away with an armful of old Observer guides and intend to spend this evening identifying "Grasses and Sedges" on the fell side with a spot of bilberry picking if the birds haven't eaten them all ( my car is always covered in purple bird poo at this time of year). The rest of the week will be busy with lovely bookshop days and a cyanotype workshop for Cumbria Printmakers in Shap where we have an exhibition until Sunday.And so the summer speeds along and it's been a good year for the roses.I've been stitching and printing like mad for all the exhibitions I'm taking part in; much of the new work features stitched roses on cyanotype still lives and the elusive dream of a home with roses around the door . The next event will be Craftsmen at the Priory in the Dacre Hall at Lanercost. I visited last week and it's a seriously beautiful part of Cumbria, right on Hadrian's Wall. I do feel very honoured to be one of the core group's invited guests especially as this is the 40th anniversary of the exhibition. It opens on August 8th with a preview evening including a 10% discount. Here's your invitation...Now I must go and learn some new plant names, write a newsletter and organise the things I've unpacked and piled in the middle of the floor after Art in the Pen. I want to write more often, I will try, it's often the World that makes me silent- why add to the noise when there are important things to be said, by people better able to say them. Will you read if I keep writing? I hope so.Recent Reading: Swallows and Amazons - A Ransome,  Sweet Caress - William Boyd , 16 Trees of the Somme- Lars Mytting, The Gloaming - Kirsty Logan Rotherweird - Andrew Caldecott (audio book) ,  21st Century Yokle - Tom Cox (audio book) SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave