Artist Susie is saying it with smiles
An Arran artist has found a new outlet for her work by taking up painting.
Susie Thompson has long been renowned for her ceramic works, which include fantastical dragons. But now she has a new, and much smaller, fascination – mice!
Although she had drawn and painted all her life, the self-taught artist has only taken it up seriously in the past two years. And it all started by accident. Susie had been ‘doodling’ a Christmas scene – complete with a Rudolf mouse, of course, which was spotted by Dr Cathy Welsh on a visit to Susie’s home in Shiskine. ‘That would make a great Christmas card,’ she said, and as a direct result Can’t Buy Smiles was born.
Since that first card was produced, Susie has been quietly getting on with designing a whole range of cards for every occasion – birthdays, get well, new baby, Valentine’s day, Easter, Christmas as well as general greetings cards.
And her designs have not gone unnoticed. When Arran vet Charlotte Clough was looking for artwork for her new Brodick surgery, she turned to Susie, who has produced four original artworks featuring cats and mice, which are all vet-related, for the surgery waiting room. They even include a late beloved ginger tom cat which belonged to Charlotte. Cards of the prints are also available at the surgery with £1 from each sale going to the Hessilhead wildlife centre in Beith, which often cares for animals found on Arran.
Susie said: ‘I met Charlotte purely by chance when we gave her a book about an old Arran vet, but I am really pleased with the results. I love colour and love to have lots going on in my paintings which means people can enjoy them at face value or really study what is going on.
‘My mind seems to work in mysterious ways but I hope people will like the end results,’ she added.
The cards are produced in a cottage industry with her husband Keith and they are all prints of original watercolour paintings with a computer only used for background colouring impossible to reproduce by hand.
The name for the new venture, Can’t Buy Smiles, is very simple in its context, as Susie explains: ‘You can’t buy smiles, but you can give them away. I want my work to lift the soul and the heart and put a smile on faces of everyone who sees it.’
Susie admits she has had a difficult year but is now concentrating her efforts in getting her card business up and running – and one thing we can expect is more mice. Susie said: ‘A good friend saw one of my recent paintings and immediately asked, “Where’s the mice?”, so I am now trying to put them in all my work.’
And she is already gearing up for Christmas with a second card for the Pierhead Tavern in Lamlash and a private commission and, along with the increasing availability of her cards on the island, she is looking at developing internet sales in the coming months.
A selection of the cards can be bought at the Harbour Shop, Blackwaterfoot and Charisma Lane in Brodick has cards and ceramics. Susie’s Christmas cards will be on sale at the Book and Card Centre in Brodick and she is happy to work to commission email:susie@cantbuysmiles.co.uk.