New Painting: Autumn Glory

"Autumn Glory" by Clare Walker
Click or tap here to browse or buy.
(There's no watermark on purchased items :-))

Hello there

As ever, I hope life is treating you well, whether it's autumn, spring, or neither of those seasons making their way into your corner of the world at the moment. 

Here it is autumn, complete with cool winds, and a sudden need for soups and stews.  And although our neighbour's silver tree hasn't quite reached the stage you see in the picture above yet, I have so many memories, photographs and previous attempts to draw upon, the time just felt right to give this another go. The result has made its way into my collection of images for sale at Pixels.Com.

A little bit more info about my art on Pixels/Fine Art America

In a previous post, I did the best I could to explain why most of my images will be there as we move forward. As a result of that, lots of questions have been asked, so I'll do my best to answer them here.

1. No, not all my previous art is there (yet). But if you like a specific picture from the past, you can ask me to put it up there, (eg with my new contact form). This is what someone did this week for my "Nasturtiums," which are now also available on Pixels:

https://pixels.com/featured/autumn-glory-vibrant-autumnal-tree-clare-walker.html

2. Yes, my designs are available on other items as well as prints, eg stickers, greeting cards and even jigsaws...

But please be aware that not all items may be manufactured locally to you (there is a map here which explains this point better than I can).

3. Yes, you can change the currency to one more local to you if your device isn't showing the one you need. Just scroll right down to the bottom of any page of Pixels/Fine Art America to where it says "Location Settings".

4. The site with my designs on it is hosted, run and administered by Pixels,Com/Fine Art America. (If  I were to run anything myself, nothing would ever get painted). But it is one of the few ways in which I can display a clear collection of my own items to you, whilst still being paid royalties when items sell, and not having my items jumbled with everyone else's (something people have talked about a lot, in the past).

5. Despite it not being my shop (and therefore, my not having much control over anything except wall-art prices), I still keep being asked questions. I've done my best to answer them here. But the real people who can answer them better are probably the Pixels/Fine Art America team, whose contact page is here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 One way or another, I hope these answers help and may inspire you to want to purchase a yummy item or two...

On that note, I'll leave you for now, with another pic of "Autumn Glory," after what's been a lot of words (even for me):

Thanks for being here, for your support, and for reading down this far. You're amazing.

More soon.

New Painting: Turning the Corner

Hello there

Hope life is treating you well. But if you're in need of some peace, relaxation and whimsy, then this week's new painting may be just the thing.

"Turning the Corner"
Click or tap here
to comment or find out more...

This came about very quickly, to capture a golden September moment in the park, when vibrant flowers were still bursting through railings (all the brighter after rain)...And the sun seemed ever brighter just around the corner (hence the title: "Turning the Corner").

The links above will take you to this specific painting, within my new online shop.

That "just moving in feeling,"

 

Truthfully, I still have that "just moving in feeling," in relation to the shop.

But my aim is (finally!) to have all my designs for sale in one place (as people have asked me to do many times. This will give a lot more time for actually making art (yay!) whilst also  making life 50 times easier for you and other lovely people actually to find designs you like.

There'll be much more on this in the weeks and months ahead. But for now, it's all going well. And have just discovered that yes, I *can* still offer you greeting cards designed specifically for that purpose, but based on a particular painting.

The first of these is today's painting...

Tap or click here to shop for
"Turning the Corner," greeting cards

It made sense to start here, because there are so many occasions on which you might send a card to someone who's turned a corner in their life...Or just to cheer them up with some relaxing whimsy.

Maybe I've turned a corner too, and am starting to feel at home in my art's new home as well :-).

Thanks so much for being here. Please watch this space...

More soon.

___________________________

Relaxing With The Caterpillars...

Humming-Bird Hawk Moth Caterpillar Mixed Media Sketch

Hello there

Hope you are thriving (and doing exactly the amount you do or don't want to do at the moment).

For my own part, I meant to do so much, and yet, somehow...

Here's the thing. This August feels so *pressured* for some reason. Maybe it's all self-imposed, or maybe you can relate?

Anyway, there were *so* many things I meant to do this week. To present to you, and to to help you with. (Yes, I see you, honestly, all the people to whom I've been promising more YouTube videos since forever...). 

And then there's that "tariff" word...

As you'll know if you've spent any time here, I do my very, very best to avoid politics here altogether. If you love happy and whimsical art, you're welcome here, and that's that.

But as the elephant has made its way into our actual room here, it feels like there's little choice but to say something.

To anyone worried about tariffs affecting their shopping for my designs, my best answer so far (after hours of searching, and-unsurprisingly-very little previous knowledge of international trade) goes like this: 

"Everyone's geographical situation is different, so my trying to say anything here (or even steer all my designs into one place) wouldn't help a bit, and might make things worse. Please just get to know what's best for you personally, wherever you are, and I'll do my very best to accommodate that if I can, in considering in which shops to place designs."

Luckily...

Luckily, online downloads remain easy to access wherever you are, as far as I know... (I'll be introducing new items to my Craftsuprint shop soon, for that very reason).

So, obviously...

So, obviously, the only thing to do in response to all this weirdness was... to hang out with the caterpillars. :-)

For context, we had had  a humming-bird hawk moth visit our window boxes a couple of weeks ago. She was verrry interested in a particular plant with "pinwheel" leaves that was growing rather rampantly in our box we dedicated to wild flowers a few years back.

(I say "was" growing rampantly, because six caterpillars make incredibly short work of an awful lot of leaves. Which, in our case, suited us just fine, and probably saved us a lengthy autumn tidying/weeding session :-).

And so it came about that our enticement to live in the moment once more has come, this week, from an insight into the not-so-tiny and voraciously-eating lives of six fat caterpillars. Who I strongly suspect may have been the inspiration for the Very Hungry Caterpillar young children's board book by the late, great, Eric Carle (Affiliate link proudly placed to leading to the book back there. Because who doesn't love a book that-as far as I remember- has pages  actually *designed* to look munched?)

Artistic License?

I'll keep you posted if we see anything progressing with these really now rather large creatures (1.5 inches each at least, and growing by the day).

In the meantime, in the interests of accuracy, I'll close with The Computer Man's photo of one of these beings, so that you can see that I have liberally used artistic license, in giving them extra and wider pink feet, and, um...eyes.

Hummingbird Hawk Moth Caterpillar
 (Photo by Jim Fernbank).

The funny thing is, despite everything going on in the world, a few minutes of "caterpillar watching", really *is* incredibly calming. Who knew?

And with that, I'll leave you to your day.

Thanks so very much for being here, *and* for reading down this far.

More soon.

___________________________