Late springs and other avoidance tactics

Yesterday boyfriend said to me "It's two months since you posted your blog". I made it clear I was aware of this. The trouble is a blog is like a tax return, the longer you leave it the more you put it off. Not that I don't enjoy writing, the opposite is true, but it gets to the point when there is so much to say that you don't know where to start. So I will start with my latest painting, a still life, and an attempt to capture the essence of spring. Not that there has actually been much spring so far...

Work on the house had stalled, and boyfriend was going crazy wanting to get on with stuff. "You need to move the Rhubarb, so I can lay the greenhouse base" he said. I looked out at the snow and made it clear I was moving nothing. I appreciate his efforts to make me a greenhouse base but unless it is above 10 degrees I don't do gardening. 

We did make it to Ikea though and I couldn't resist taking this photo for the teen. We are big Boris Johnson fans in this house. It has nothing to do with politics, I am a socialist, boyfriend refuses to vote as they are 'all Liars'. He is right of course, but since I am too busy to run the country myself difficult choices must be made. As for the teenagers they are too self obsessed to take any notice of current affairs, which is fun as it gives boyfriend and I ample chances to wind her up. "So... how long have North Korea and South Korea been good friends and allies?" I asked her last week. Of course, she suspected a set up and tried to bluff her way out: " Er, quite some time?" she said as boyfriend and I collapsed in howls of laughter. "I HATE YOU ALL" she yelled, stomping off. Too easy. Far too easy.

In between teasing teenagers and arguing about the garden I have also completed this children's art print. There are lots of children's posters for sale on the internet, but most of them are designed on graphics programs, with areas of flat colour, so I like the idea of making some that you can actually see have been made with a brush, not a computer mouse.

After becoming more disillusioned with my difficult to use, messy looking website, I have finally decided to order a new one, and the idea is that it will be linked to lots of my other internet projects. The prints will link to my Etsy shop so people can buy if they wish, the tuition articles I write on Squidoo will all have links and my facebook feed will be on the front page. All of this means much work, to make all my internet sites pull together as a cohesive brand, and to list more items online. Including these new 'ACEO' mini prints, the same size as trading cards, many people collect them, putting them in specially made binders:

So am spending most of my time online as I work my way through the backlog of out of date biographies and broken links. The rest of my time has been spent arranging my summer painting classes and courses. Numbers have picked up for the regular classes after dipping in the winter, which is a relief. Now I just need to promote the summer one day courses, and perhaps then I can pick up my paintbrush again!