February has been a really busy month. The new project is fully under way and registration for Swindon Open Studios has started. Once again I’m looking after registrations, loading the information onto the SOS website and preparing it all ready to go into the brochure.
Despite having a lot on, I’ve still managed to grab an hour or so every Sunday morning for some “me, creative time!”
February 2026
Artemis Fauna
The first weekend, I caught up on an unedited model shoot with Artemis Fauna, and spent a couple of hours prepping images ready to use at a later date.
Paint Swatch
I’ve had this idea for a while now where I combine coloured paint and paper layers to look like sample swatches and then overlay them with flowers or line art. Below is the first attempt, whilst I do like it I think there is something not quite right. I’m not sure if I need to desaturate the colours slightly or not use such bold colours and use pastels instead – not sure. But I do know that the experimenting will continue. This image is made up of several brush stroke layers and 3 brush stamp layers for the line art.
Love Letters
As this image was created on Valentines Day, I’ve tentatively called it “Love Letters”. I say tentatively because I’m not sure that the right name for it. Although to be brutally honest, I have absolutely no idea on what to name it, naming my images is one thing I really struggle with as an artist! This image has been created using 8 different elements and blended together.
Floral Background
The final piece for the month took on a life of it’s own and is not yet completed but so as not to show anything I shared the floral background I’d created instead. This background is created from 5 different background merged and blended together.
Hopefully the floral background with form part of an image in March.
* Elements, brushes & backgrounds courtesy of Hiraeth Macarbe, Fusion Dream Print, Marius Els and The Daily Texture.