End of a Season and Starting a New One.

This blog is about the new ventures I have going on this year, creative processes running at the moment and some new plans for the future. Some of this includes my continuing work on Silly Goose counting book, some new teaching opportunities, gardening and watching my grandaughter enjoy life!

This year I wanted to really get the hang of planting flowers rather than tons of veg, although we still have about 6 veg varieties growing. I had an overspill with producitivity and did some Village boots sales for fun and sold a lot! And a funny thing happened, I sold some Cosmos flowers to a landscape gardener, who was going to be displaying at Chelsea Flower Show,. Although I was a littlel cynical that he really was, he sent me photographic evidence of his work going onto the main avenue. He was showcasing an amazing Sculptor who works in large scale drift wood creations (https://www.jamesdoranwebb.co.uk/) .. so I guess you never know where little projects can end up! we had a chuckle that my flowers were on show at Chelsea (for the non Brits reading - this is probably the most prestigious flower show in the country!) So the garden continues to grow and I'm looking forward to full blooms of dahlias, calendulars, gypsophelia, cosmos, scabious, and more.. and its been fun having my little helper here in the process.

The Silly Goose Helps us Count Book is hopefully in the final stages, and will go to print at the end of June. Many rehash and makeovers, but hopefully will result in a bright, engaging counting book for toddlers - if my granddaughter approves!

As from the 6th of June my domain name www.joystephanie.com will no longer take you to this wix site, but to another platform that was launched this year called Kingdom Market

Place https://www.kingdommarketplace.org.uk/ . You can find me under JOY STEPHANIE

I will still be selling my greeting cards and a new range of prints that are not as high end as giclee prints. The platform is in its early days but I hope to keep things showing there for the year. You will not need to do anything different - just keep using joystephanie.com.

Wix site will still showcase in a gallery but there will be no checkout available. Blogs will still be available. My url for that site will read: joysbell.wixsite.com/joystephanie

A vibrant abstract landscape painting depicting rolling hills and stylized trees in warm hues of pink, orange, and red, under a softly clouded sky.

Since January I have been designing a 6 part Foundational Art Program to help beginners or nervous artists find their feet with landscape painting. It covers expressive painting, mixin gcolours, mark making, colour theory and more so that the student can feel confident to create, not just landscapes, but apply the lessons learned to other areas of cteativity. I have also been rolling this out to a few homeschool families and a teacher in Kenya who runs an after school art class. I am super proud of my students with their progress. Many of them have had little art instruction before. The aim of the course is to inspire and help them find their creative voice.

Here is a sneak peak to one of the lessons. It will all be available for download on the new site very soon. https://www.kingdommarketplace.org.uk/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KHSddoKzzk

The garden will continue to grow!

You will still be able to access all the old wix blog posts and I believe I will still be able to write more blogs. The wix site will have a gallery of work but purchases will be done directly with me not via the wix site.

If you would like to continue getting updates from me please email me directly at joysbell@gmail.com to be added to a new mailing list.

Many thanks!