Waveney Valley Blog....

Thanks so much to Nigel and Susan at Waveney Valley Blog
 http://www.waveneyvalleyblog.com/
 for including details of the Christmas Exhibition and a link to Art club on their site.

The Art Club Winter Exhibition.....

Its such a busy time of year and this coming weekend the three Art Clubs I run for children just outside Norwich in Norfolk come together to showcase this term's work in a Winter Exhibition. The theme is 'colour' and there are some fantastic and inspiring pieces of work on show in fabric collage, paper mache, painting and printing. There will be more examples in my Art Club blog- see

http://www.sarahjarrettartclub.blogspot.com/

and on the Art Club and Mix Up Website- see-

www.wix.com/sarahjarrett/art-club

If you want to come and see the show its at

St Mary's Church, Surlingham on

Saturday 12 & Sunday 13 December

from 9.30 - 3.30 daily

( note Sunday service at 11am)

New Still Life

I'm working on a new series of food still life pieces in limited/ monochromatic colours. I finished the first one yesterday and hope to put the others up as I finish them.

New Online Portfolio....

I've redesigned my online portfolio and I'm really pleased with how it looks. View it and tell me what you think...
www.wix.com/sarahjarrett/sarah
I've been really busy lately doing a lot of workshops in schools all over Norfolk for the Science, Art and Writing Trust. Its been a fantastic experience, I've been involved in it for several years now and I feel like I learn a great deal every time.
http://www.sawtrust.org/

New printed circle paintings.....

I've been working on a whole series of abstract pieces lately for an interior design company mainly using digital media- long hours on photoshop and it reignited my inbuilt passion for shape and pattern so I've been doing some immediate hands on printed paintings for my Etsy shop and to escape the virtual world!

'Aqua Circles' and 'Crimson and tangerine circles' shown here are the two I've just listed. See

www.sarahjarrett.etsy.com.

I love working in this way and playing about with the endless combinations and arrangements of simple shapes and patterns.

I wanted them to look very bold and primative with strong colours and to echo Indian or African textiles.

New illustration work.....

Its the end of the Summer Holidays which always feels a significant point in the year. Both my children are now at Secondary school this term so it was an early start getting them out to catch the school bus today. It also meant a much earlier beginning to my working day which was great.

This is one of the new illustration pieces I've finished recently. I have so many new ideas for things I want to do, I feel like my mind is literally buzzing! I love gardening paraphenalia- all the tools, pots, plants, seed packets and the different jobs involved at different times of year. I want to do a whole series of pictures documenting these themes. I'd also like to do the same with cooking and baking.

Butterflies

I've been working on the theme of Butterflies for a while recently and have all three of these images for sale in my Etsy shop. I think they are such an ideal decorative icon, I never get tired if trying to interpret them in different ways.

My favourite is the large collage butterfly to the left. I particularly like the colours and I used a lot of sweet foils in the collage which gives it a really shiny surface.

Cup cakes!

Continuing my food theme of late, I've just finished my 'Cupcakes' piece. I made all the cakes from fabric collages and then machine stitched them. All six cakes are mounted on canvas as a ready to hang piece. I've just listed it in my Etsy shop today. Take a look.

Food, glorious food......

One of the main themes in my work is food. I have always loved to cook and eat good food and I think this has naturally become an interest in my artwork.

I am particularly attracted to the arrangement of things - bowls, cups, teapots, cooking implements- still life really, and I like to play about with this idea in my collage illustrations.

I also love the decorative potential in food - colours and patterns etc and I make most use of this in some of my paper mache pieces. My paper mache cake boxes play this idea to the full. I have both of these for sale in my etsy shop.

At the moment I'm working on some images of 'cup cakes' using collaged fabrics. Again very decorative and patterned. I hope to post them soon.

Flowers - Painted Photographic Prints

I began my freelance career making large photographic colour prints of flowers and painting on to them with oils, sometimes I stitched onto the surface with a sewing machine. I hadn't seen any other photographic work that had stitched surfaces and I thought it was an interesting idea. It added another dynamic and gave the pieces a different quality. I gained a lot of early success with card and poster publishers with these images and I think it was because the idea was unusual and original.

I still make photographic pieces and continue to add other elements using collage and painting to experiment and explore. I am always drawn to flowers and still life objects. I like very simple arrangements. My main focus is always the differing qualities of natural light and of colour.

In my Etsy shop I sell prints and posters but I also have some original pieces for sale. This is the only venue for buying my originals as I rarely sell them on.
One day I would like to do a book of my flower images integrated with some of my landscapes of Norfolk. I am always recording . I have a plan chest crammed with prints and experiments that I would like to do something with............

Love Hearts!

I love decorative hearts and often use them in my work. All of the above pieces are in my Etsy shop.

New canvas pieces....

I now have a 'Ready to hang' section in my Etsy shop. These two collages on canvas have just been listed today.

Ready to hang collage on canvas....

This week I'm working on some new collage pieces straight onto canvas so they are ready to hang. I'm doing some more tea time/ still life images to start with like the three above which are in my Etsy shop. I hope to have some up tommorrow for viewing. I think they'd be lovely as kitchen pictures.

All things nautical...

I have several paper mache pieces for sale in my Etsy shop on a seaside theme. I've included a selection of images. I particularly love the Pirate figures and enjoyed painting the costumed figures.

Faces....

I run several Art sessions each week after school for children aged 5 -11 years. They are really popular and I've been running them for about 8 years now. I have always taught art alongside being an artist. Living in the countryside I wanted initially to offer creative opportunities for young children in rural areas. I moved from Brighton to Norwich in 1997 and I was quite shocked at how few 'art' opportunities there were here. I run my Art sessions to try and give children a chance to use lots of different materials and media but to also develop real confidence as they progress. In some schools Art seems to have a smaller and smaller place in the curriculum. They develop some amazing work and we have a proper exhibition of the art work each school term. I always make an artwork myself to start each project alongside visual ideas boards. I don't think its fair to ask them to do something I haven't attempted myself first.
I started a new project with my Art groups last week looking at faces and expressions. I wanted the idea to be really colourful and appealling so I made this piece as inspiration using a large sheet of cardboard as backing and making the headshapes and hair from newspaper and masking tape. I then painted all the detail. I used lots of bright patterns in stripes and spots and added hair accessories from cardboard. The children loved the idea and are developing some brilliant responses. One of the older girls who responds to anything decorative is making some wonderful hairstyles from curls and spirals of newspaper and some of the boys are making mohicans and punks for some of their characters. I hope to include some examples when they begin to paint their work.

Butterflies and Flowers......

I've been working flat out all weekend to finish new work for SURTEX next week in New York. My agent is going out towards the end of the week for meetings prior to the event and new work needs to go into the portfolios before then. When I'm really busy I get on to a real roll and I can produce new pieces quite quickly.
Last week I picked up some old wallpaper books to use as collage papers in my work. One in particular had some beautiful textured papers in bright colours with almost powdery textures that were lovely to use. I felt like a child with a new paint box. Anyway I used these to make some of my new work. The Butterflies and Flowers shown are two of the images I've just finished and are now for sale in my Etsy shop.