Among All the Excitement of Christmas.

A few days before Christmas there was a knock at our front door.
A man stood there with a child's shoe in his hand.
My husband recognised him as the man who had bought our previous house. We had lived in that house for a long time and our children had grown up there.
Mary Kemp. Sketch
© Mary Kemp
Child's Shoe

The man explained that he had been clearing out the loft and had found this small brown shoe. My last memories of that loft are being up there at 11 o'clock the night before we moved throwing things down to pack ready for the move.
As I hold this shoe in my hand I can see myself hurrying up a child to put it on getting ready for school. I can remember cleaning it with brush and brown polish and I feel infinitely sad that my children are now adults.
Enough of this sentimentality...... I shake myself because life goes on and so I get out my sketch book and have a quiet moment drawing, trying to pin down which of my strapping sons this shoe belonged to.

5 New Things I've Tried This Year

Well I seem to have tried quite a few new things this year, and for someone who's unadventurous that is very impressive.
These are my 5 arty new things.
Of course none of them beats my climb up Snowdon in 2016 (what, I haven't told you about that?!!!) but they've made the year interesting and enjoyable all the same.

  • I've discovered you can paint with oils on paper.
    mary kemp happy ever after
    © Mary Kemp
    I might call this "Happy Ever After"
    Not breath taking but I've always stuck to board or canvas so  it's quite something. And while I'm on the subject I incorporated some fabric into a painting of the waves. I'm still assessing that.
  • Watched an animated film that wasn't Disney. Now this was quite amazing. I bludgeoned my husband into coming to the cinema with me and we saw "Loving Vincent" the world's first fully oil painted animated film. Here's a link to watch a little preview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47h6pQ6StCk . As well as the gorgeousness of the painting the plot was pretty good too! I do urge you to watch it if you have the chance.
  • Dabbled in lino cutting. Our local museum held a lino cutting
    mary kemp lino cuttings
    I seem to repeat the same
    few subjects,
    animals and children
    at the seaside
    © Mary Kemp
    workshop, something I've not done since art school so off I went. It was an enjoyable few sessions and ably led by artist
    Janet Bates but what I learnt was that not everything is for me, because while I absolutely loved the process and wanted to do more my hands let me down big time. Perhaps I need to do more squeezing rubber balls to get the fingers moving. I think swishing a paintbrush comes easier to me.




 I visited Morecambe and stayed in an Art Deco hotel.

Oh I know how to live! I went on a motoring jolly to celebrate 70 years of the Citroen DS.
I also did a little bit of drawing. Not of cars I may add.
© Mary Kemp. Sketch


Created a new website. This is the most difficult, brain wrenching thing I've done all year. I found that whilst I can grasp the essentials of such things the implementation takes an awful lot of time so it's a work in progress. But please do check it out. Still at the same address www.marykemp.co.uk

So seaside friends what does next year hold for us all?....
The adventure starts here.......

How to Care for Prints

Dear fellow art lovers, I'm often asked by busy customers how to look after their prints once they've bought them. Prints are a ...