Hello again! After an extremely busy weekend at Aberdeen Art Gallery I’m back to quickly let you know what’s on the agenda here at HooperHart Headquarters. I’ve got a lot of replenishing to do, with a broad range of items proving popular with the Aberdonians including brooches, Paint Your Own Flowers, hanging decorations and a selection of framed dioramas:
So it’s going to be making, making, making in time for my next event at Bowhouse in St Monans, Fife. Organised by Tea Green Events it’s always a fun day out with tip top talented artists, makers and designers, loads of yummy food stalls and refreshments galore! I’ll be there on Saturday, November 11th from 10am – 4pm.
Then on Sunday, November 12th I will be back in Perthshire for the White Church, Comrie Winter Craft Fair
Into its 22nd year, Comrie’s Christmas market takes place in the most gorgeous setting on the river Earn and showcases the work of over 25 talented Perthshire artists. You can find me there on Sunday November 12th 11am-3pm.
I’ll be back with more news next week but in the meantime you can find details of all my events on my ‘Shop’ page. TTFN!
Bowhouse images: VisitScotland, Love from the Scotland, Scotland the Bread. Comrie images: Good News Perthshire
So somehow it’s November in a few days’ time, and once again I am wondering how that happened (like I do every year). Autumn obviously decided to take the year off – wet and windy weather has been the order of the month, and with darkness falling at 5 o’clock we seem to have been plunged rather than eased into winter. On the upside it means that the festive fair season is just around the corner and this year it’s kicking off with a very exciting one – Tea Green’s Festive Market at Aberdeen Art Gallery
It’s exciting for me because I have never done a fair in Aberdeen, and it will also be nice to revisit the city I lived in for two years as a teenager (back in the mists of time) while I got my portfolio together to apply for art school!
I’ll be there all weekend, November 4th & 5th from 10am – 4pm. With a fabulous line up of over 50 of the best independent creative business based in Scotland, it’s the ideal place to start ticking off your Christmas shopping list!
See below all the places you can find me over the next two months, and I’ll be back soon with more details
It’s nearly a whole month since Open Studios finished and I am happy to say it went very well.
There were lots of new faces, interesting chats and healthy sales, all of which I am very grateful for. It was the first time I’d taken part and I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was all good, and the (mostly) warm and sunny weather definitely helped!
But looking out of the window this morning those sunshine-filled days seem very distant now…
There are weather warnings in place for most of Scotland with roads and railway lines closed due to flooding. The vibe is wet, windy and wintery! With weather like this there’s no denying we are approaching the end of the year, so it’s a good time to let you know that my 2024 calendar is now for sale online!
I’m very excited about this – it’s the first time I’ve designed a calendar and I wish I’d done it before! It was a hit at Open Studios and is selling fast in my Folksy and Etsy shops. It features 12 photographs of my original dioramas, with each month illustrated by a miniature scene reflecting the time of year – all inspired by the wonderful wildlife, countryside and coastlines of the British Isles. The calendar was printed by a small local company in Perthshire and £1 from the sale of each calendar to Hogscroft Hedgehog Rescue.
I hope you like it!
I’ll be back soon with more new products and a timetable of events for the coming months. In the meantime coorie in!
Somehow September has arrived which means that this year’s Perthshire Open Studios is only a few days away!
P.O.S is back in full effect after a wee hiatus and there will be over 120 artists, designers and makers welcoming the public to their workspaces and galleries
I’m experiencing a mixture of excitement and panic as this is my very first P.O.S and there’s an awful lot to tick off the to-do list before it kicks off on September 6th. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with a deadline though, so I’m confident everything will be ship-shape and ready to roll come Wednesday!
Perthshire is a sizeable, mostly rural county so it has been split up into six easily navigatable areas – you can find me on the official South route, but I am also handy for the West route which covers our nearest town, Auchterarder. If you haven’t already picked up a brochure you can download one as a PDF from the P.O.S website and everyone has a What 3 Words address to help you find them. You can also browse each area’s studios online before you go – have a look at mine here
It’s a great opportunity to buy/see my new work and pieces I’m currently working on, as well as experiments and discounted items I won’t be selling anywhere else. It’s also a really fun way to explore corners of Perthshire which you might not see otherwise (I’m hidden down a quiet little single track road outside Dunning).
So look out for posters, banners, bunting and arrows around Perthshire, and keep an eye on my social media for updates and photos!
The summer holidays are in full swing and I’m looking forward to my upcoming fortnight off. I’ll be using the time to do much-postponed jobs around the house and garden, as well as catching-up with old friends and hopefully squeezing in a trip or two in the campervan (the first since 2019!).
July is normally a quiet time for makers but it’s a busy time for some – there will be plenty of visitors heading to Perthshire and hopefully to Artisan And in beautiful Aberfeldy.
Here you can find my work showing as part of a mixed exhibition of wonderful art and craft from around the country, alongside paintings from featured artist Victoria Wylie running from July 22nd to September 1st:
There’s lots to see and do in Aberfeldy and the surrounding area at this time of year, from fantastic independent shops, eateries and galleries, to beautiful forest and river walks, so if you’re in Highland Perthshire over the next couple of months, make sure and pop it on your to-do list.
I’ll be back next month with Perthshire Open Studios news but in the meantime have a great summer!
Somehow we’re almost halfway through May and yet again the year seems to be getting away from me somewhat…how does this always happen? Ok, so there’s been another house move to contend with (the 3rd in 4 years) as well as numerous projects and events to prepare for, but I’m convinced that time speeds up the older you get!
Anyway, I’m here to tell you that the first of said events is right around the corner on May 20th & 21st:
Inspired by its hugely successful Christmas event last year, Perth Creative Exchange will again be opening its studios to the public AND hosting a market in the foyer. In partnership with Perthshire Artisans the market will showcase some of Perthshire’s best art, craft and design. Entry is free and the building is dog-friendly, so if you’re in the area pop along between 10-4.
The following weekend we have the marvellous Makers for Maggie’s at Dundee’s Steeple on Saturday, May 27th:
Maggie’s Centres provide free practical, social and emotional support for people living with cancer and costs a phenomenal amount of money to run. Like many people I have experienced the devastating effect that cancer can have on loved ones. The disease is affecting more people than ever before, and with the cost of living crisis it is vital for organisations like Maggie’s to keep going so they can continue to provide this crucial support.
There will be 30 stallholders (all donating a percentage of their sales to Maggie’s), a pop-up cafe, a raffle (with prizes donated by the stallholders) and goody bags for the first visitors. Entry is a suggested £1 (donated to the charity) and it’ll be open from 11-4.
So if you’re in Tayside, it would be great to see you at one of these brilliant events! Thanks for reading and I’ll be back with more news soon.
Now and again a customer will contact me to ask if I can make a unique piece for themselves or a loved one which will incorporate an element personal to them. I don’t go out of my way to advertise the fact I can make bespoke pieces, mainly because they can be very time-consuming (not to mention nerve-wracking), and at certain times of the year it’s just too difficult to fit around everything else that’s going on.
Having said that, commissions can also be exciting, fun and educational!
Back in March I was contacted by a customer who’s husband was publishing a novel called ‘Fray’ and she wanted to give him a special, unique gift to mark the occasion. She thought my work was reminiscent of the book cover and asked if I could create something similar in diorama form; the book is set in the wilds of Glencoe and the cover artwork by Holly Ovenden features a red cottage set amongst the fir trees and mountains…
If you know my work then you’ll know that all of these things couldn’t be more right up my street if they tried! Mountains, trees, a remote cottage, an intriguing story within = some of my favourite things and what I strive for in a lot of my work. I was also very flattered and excited to be asked to make a piece to celebrate such a wonderful achievement.
As I could use Holly’s artwork as a direct reference point, and with it being very graphic in nature I initially thought “well this will be fairly straightforward”. Always foolhardy! You think I would know by now that starting a piece from scratch is always a lengthy process, even in this case when the separate layers are already quite obvious and I have a good quality image file to work from…to explain further I should really give you a quick rundown of the stages of the design process:
First of all I draw or trace out what will become the first layer, in this case the mountains with their contour lines; when I first saw the book cover design I was immediately taken by the use of contours which you would see on an OS map (again one of my favourite things to use in a diorama, but previously as an actual piece of map forming a backdrop). I thought they would look great laser-engraved onto the wood’s surface. I used to incorporate screenprinted elements in my work to create lines and pattern, but due to a lack of workspace over the past year I’ve replaced this with laser-engraving.
Even with the lines already in place in the cover design, I have to admit they took ages to get right – there was a fair bit of tweaking involved until I was satisfied they would work as engraved lines!
Then comes the 2nd layer – the land with the cottage; the cottage only measures just over 1cm wide so I knew I couldn’t attempt to paint the details of the roof, door and windows, so they all became engraing lines too. When working on this scale I always spend time ensuring no detail will be lost in the cutting process:
The same goes for the trees on the 3rd layer. At this point decisions had to be made regarding simplifying the design to make it work on a small scale (the final scene measures 8cm). This is where artistic licence comes in! I decided to reduce the number of trees and lose the reflection from the original cover design so it didn’t look too busy.
The shapes need to be solid black so that they can be turned into vector drawings readable by a laser cutter. As I have yet to join the 21st century I do this using Photoshop (rather than something like an iPad). While all this is happening I’m also thinking about how the final piece will be painted to create more depth and texture. To help me visualise the final piece I make a mock-up in Photoshop:
Once I’m happy with all the pieces, individually and together, I can then import them into Inkscape (a vector graphics editor). Inskcape enables you to transform drawings into outlines which will be cut or engraved by the laser cutter (for a deeper dive into this have a look at LaserFlair’s blog post).
The really exciting part of the process comes when the pieces are finally cut; I always hold my breath though until I know that everything looks as it should…there are a multitude of things which need to be checked and double-checked before the start button is pressed! In this case everything came out perfectly I’m glad to say:
Of course the pieces still had to be painted and assembled, and the painting on this one in particular filled me with trepidation! Opportunities for mistakes are still plentiful at this point – I was concerned about painting the black mountains neatly to avoid blocking out the contour lines, and I also hadn’t nailed down the foreground area below the trees…
It all turned out fine in the end though, and I’m very happy to report that the customer and her husband loved the finished piece. I feel very honoured that my work is now a small part of the ‘Fray’ story. I can’t wait to read it!
It might not feel like it right now due to the current wintry weather but springtime is just around the corner! The clocks will be going forward soon, bringing brighter and lighter days and lots to look forward to.
The first thing I want to tell you about is The Big Spring Bash at St Andrews Botanic Garden: ‘an action-packed weekend of interactive activities, workshops, live music and local food & drink’ PLUS a makers’ market showcasing some gorgeous local art, craft and design:
The Urban Market is in St Andrews Botanic Garden on March 25th & 26th March, and I will be there on the Saturday, 12pm – 4pm. Being a celebration of springtime, I’ll be taking lots of my flora and fauna themed work, including my bestselling wooden brooches with their super-cute new backing cards!
Inspired by Nature
Admission to the whole of the Big Spring Bash is £12 (adults) & £8 (children) and tickets are available from the Botanic Garden website
In other news I’m very excited to report I’ve received funding from VACMA – Visual Artist and Craft Maker Awards – to undertake a small personal project. It will be research project on a subject which has long been on my mind…I’ll reveal more once I get started!
One more piece of big news before I go: the phenomenally popular Perthshire Open Studios is back after a year’s hiatus and I’m taking part! It will run from September6th–11th 2023 and although I might be studio-less right now, I will have something organised for September…it’s good to set yourself challenges once in a while!
I don’t know about you but I’m usually quite relieved to get January out of the way and this year is no exception. February feels to me like the start of the year proper, so to celebrate I’m offering free postage on everything in my HooperHart Folksy and Etsy stores! No need for a discount code – zero postage has already been applied, and will continue for the whole month.
Dream Wheels
A wee update on what I’ve been up to as Rudy and the Rowan Tree, the offshoot I use as a place to experiment and try out ideas which are unrelated to my Hooperhart work, and often more playful – I love creating my HooperHart pieces incidentally, but sometimes it’s nice to mix things up a bit! I’m currently loving making spirograph-inspired hanging decorations using embroidery thread and wooden discs – I call them Dream Wheels and you can find them on Folksy and Etsy Free postage also applies to my Rudy and the Rowan Tree stores for the whole of February!
Gift vouchers are go!
In other news, I wanted to draw your attention to my newly launched Gift Vouchers.They can be emailed directly to the recipient so make gifting super easy! They are exclusively available from my HooperHart Folksy store. There’s so many gorgeous products on there you might want to make it your go-to for gifts in the future though – all made in the UK to boot!
Hello and a Happy New Year to you! I hope you all had a lovely festive season and are gently easing into 2023. My start to the year went a bit awry with our Hogmanay plans being stymied by heavy snow – of course it was the first year in a long time that we decided to venture outside! Let’s hope this is not indicative of the rest of 2023.Anyway, I usually like to kick off the New Year with some cheeky wee reductions to give things a bit of a boost, so I’m here to tell you about the HooperHart and Rudy and the Rowan Tree January sales!
January and February are usually a quiet month and therefore a good opportunity to plan ahead and start new work – I’ve already got a list of things I want to get started on so watch this space!
HooperHart 