The Big Freeze over Britain has kept me indoors working productively on various little projects. Outside, the trees around my studio look like they have been dipped in icing sugar, while my little red fox weather vane is frozen to the spot.
I keep thinking I should try to draw or paint this extraordinary hoare frost. But deadlines are looming. Firstly I have the Katie trail to complete for The National Gallery. And now I have been asked to create a revised cover for Shakespeare’s Storybook by the publisher Barefoot Books.
In both cases I find I am looking backwards, recreating older techniques and outlooks, while all the time what I REALLY want to be doing is moving in new directions. It’s a difficult schism; I wonder what my work could be like and feel I am only imitating a version of myself that is so far ago, so distant it is like another life. Perhaps next year will be an opportunity for pastures new… Of course I am very fond of Katie. And next year will begin with a whole new book about Van Gogh’s paintings. But 21 years is a very long time. A person grows and changes in that time. I’m starting to think that it is just possible that this new Katie book might just possibly be the last…
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