Picking up the first proof from the printers in Hawick
After many hours pouring over details and having long phone conversations with the printers in Hawick, we have the final proof of the 2021 calendar and are ready to go to print. We’re hoping the first copies will be available in the first week of October.
Once again, it has been a long and sometimes difficult process, but also a joy to produce something that conjures and celebrates the local environment that I love.
Because I paint many of the subjects in my art from life, it has taken me a full year of being at my desk almost every day, to complete the 2021 calendar. Believe it or not, I have already started on the 2022 calendar!
This is partly because I collect samples of plants, insects and flowers from the garden and surrounding countryside, always making sure I paint them from life in season. Some of these plants - like the snowdrop - I must have painted a thousand times, and yet I still feel there is value in painting it from life once more. Each snowdrop, or plant or insect, is unique, and I hope that paying attention to its uniqueness as I paint, brings character, texture and a more organic feeling to my paintings.
The theme of this year’s calendar is Nature from Above and Below - showing a ‘bird’s-eye’ view at the top, and a ‘worm’s eye’ view at the bottom.
I’m thrilled to have reached the finishing line with another calendar. It gives me great joy to think of it hanging in homes across the country and also across the world! Particularly in these strange times when we are experiencing a feeling of separation from each other and, for some, from nature, it is a privilege to be able to reach out into people’s lives via my art and hopefully bring some of the natural world a little closer to them.
You’ll be able to order the calendar on the website from mid-October, but if you would like to pre-order your copy (or copies!) then please get in touch here or send me an email at blackwood.laura@gmail.com
Thank you to all of you who have already ordered! I hope you enjoy it when it finally arrives on your doorstep…