Author: Roo Waterhouse

Northlight Winter Fair

2 December 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Art Events, Blog, Events

It’s almost time for Hebden Bridge Open Studios and the Northlight Winter Fair!

On Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th December you can visit a selection of Northlight artists in our Winter Fair and also a few studios will be open.

At the Winter Fair you will find Don Myers, Katch Skinner, Rachel Red, Annie Harrison, Rachel Heny, Kate Boyce and Izzie Boyce.

Plus tea, cake, mulled wine, an activity, a raffle and some Christmas tunes on a piano!

You will also be able to visit Toby Cotterill and Roo Waterhouse in their studios upstairs and Jane Revitt downstairs.

Inside the fair, Katch is having a studio clearance of cups, egg cups and allsorts and has no card reader so bring cash.

Don Myers will be selling his new ‘Square Circle’ watercolours, 2026 calendars, diaries, notebooks, fine art prints, cards and original paintings.

Annie Harrison will be selling gift bags made from vintage newspaper, alternative Christmas wreaths and decorations made from natural materials, and ceramic bits and bobs.

Ceramicist Rachel Heny will have her hand thrown bowls and cups, jewellery, Christmas decorations and pearl lined porcelain hanging shells.

Rachel Red will have original lino prints, screen prints, cards, calendars for 2026, wooden decorations and festive mini prints.

And Izzie Boyce will have her traditional prints, cards and illustrations.

Come and visit Roo Waterhouse upstairs at Northlight Studios to have a chat and a browse through Shelf Portrait oil paintings alongside a fabulous range of Bookshelf Art prints and cards – perfect gifts for the bookworms in your life 🙂

And last but not least, come to the studio of Toby Cotterill to see a range of work from everyday earrings and gifts to one-of-a-kind pieces of sculptural jewellery and silverware. You can see new work including Beetle Beakers, inspired by recent Arts Council funding, which are hand forged from a single piece of silver with over 50,000 hammer blows! These are made using traditional silversmithing techniques, raising, chasing and repousse, which have been used for millenia, including to create the Mask of Tutankhamun.

So it’s all going on, as you can see!

All Northlight happenings are just on the Saturday on Sunday.

Hope to see you then!

Yours,

All at Northlight Art Studios

Open Studios :-)

1 December 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Art Events, Events
Saturday 6th & Sunday 7th December
11am to 5pm

Festive Open Studio!!
I’m looking forward to welcoming visitors into my studio Northlight as part of the Festive Open Studios Weekend in Hebden Bridge 🙂

Pop along to our wonderful Northlight Winter Fair, full of stalls and artists: including Rach Red; Katch Skinner: Annie Harrison; Rachel H; Pete & Carol Leonard and more! Plus mulled wine, tea, cake and a raffle!
Then head on up the central stairs to find my Open Studio. Also opening their studios will be Toby Cotterill and Jane Revitt 🙂

Northlight Winter Fair

1 December 2025
Roo Waterhouse
No comments
Categories: Art Events, Events
Saturday 6th & Sunday 7th December
11am to 5pm

Pop along to our wonderful Northlight Winter Fair, full of stalls and artists: including Rach Red; Katch Skinner: Annie Harrison; Rachel H; Pete & Carol Leonard and more! Plus mulled wine, tea, cake and a raffle!
Then head on up the central stairs to find my Open Studio. Also opening their studios will be Toby Cotterill and Jane Revitt 🙂

The Story of Art

1 December 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Blog

The Story of Art
‘The Story of Art’ oil on canvas 30x40cm

A brand new shelf portrait painting ‘The Story of Art’ has just arrived back from our wonderful local framers. It was a joy to bring together and celebrate some of the history, criticism and reflections on art throughout the ages that have informed my art practice over the years. Two of my particular favourites are ‘Matisse On Art’, which follows the development of Matisse’s ideas on art through a selection of his writings; and ‘Dear Theo’, Vincent Van Gogh’s prolific letters to his brother, Theo, which cronicle his rough, tough path to art and beyond.

The Story of Art will be winging it’s way down to Cambridge to join ‘Southern Lights’ and ‘Drama’ at the Byard Art Christmas Cracker Exhibition. The exhibition runs from 15th November until 24th December.
Adventures In Wonderland
Limited Edition Print ‘Adventures In Wonderland’

A few years ago I painted a second Childhood themed Shelf Portrait ‘Adventures In Wonderland’, which ended up going missing somewhere along the line – rather a mystery! I came across an image of it while browsing through my archive and thought it would be lovely to add it to my range of Limited Edition prints. It would make a great pairing with ‘When We Were Very Young’, my other childhood themed print – especially for a pair of children!
Shop for Adventures 🙂
Events:
Saturday 6th & Sunday 7th December
11am to 5pm

Festive Open Studio!!
I’m looking forward to welcoming visitors into my studio Northlight as part of the Festive Open Studios Weekend in Hebden Bridge 🙂

Pop along to our wonderful Northlight Winter Fair, full of stalls and artists: including Rach Red; Katch Skinner: Annie Harrison; Rachel H; Pete & Carol Leonard and more! Plus mulled wine, tea, cake and a raffle!
Then head on up the central stairs to find my Open Studio. Also opening their studios will be Toby Cotterill and Jane Revitt 🙂

Apologies…
**Please note that I will no longer be at the Northern Illustrated Book Fair in Harrogate this weekend (as I am currently in Copenhagen for my step-daughter’s marraige!).
Roo’s Shop
If you’re hoping to purchase some Bookshelf art for Christmas, you can browse my online shop and use the discount code:
festive10
anytime between now and 10th December for a special 10% discount throughout my shop.
Happy Shopping!!

Best Autumnal Wishes,
Roo

Currently Reading (and highly recommending!):
Cloud Cuckoo land by Anthony Doerr

Children’s, Illustrated & Detective Fiction Book Fair – 8th November

26 September 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Art Events, Blog, Events

I’m very happy to be taking part in this year’s Northern Children’s Illustraed and Detective Fiction Book Fair in Harrogate on Saturday 8th November.

We hope you can join us as this book fair is the only one of its kind.  It provides an opportunity for serious collectors as well as general collectors in all three areas.

A great day out for all the family.  With it being held just before Christmas it is a great opportunity to search for a gift, be that a book or some Bookshelf Art!!

https://www.pbfa.org/fairs/northern-illustrated-childrens-detective-fiction-november-2025

8th November 2025, 10:00 – 16:00

Pavilions of Harrogate, Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, HG2 8NZ

Oxford PBFA Book Fair – 18th October

26 September 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Art Events, Blog, Events

This is a one-day book fair in Oxford, and, alongside me and my Bookshelf Art, there will be around 75 dealers offering rare, collectable and second-hand books, maps, manuscripts and ephemera.

https://www.pbfa.org/fairs/oxford-book-fair-october-2025

Open Saturday 18th October 10 am – 4 pm

Café on site 🙂

Oxford Brookes University, Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane, Oxford, OX3 0BP

Another Happy Customer :-)

31 July 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Bespoke Painting, Blog
Jan with her Shelf Portrait

“I fell in love with Roo’s art from the moment I saw one of her greetings cards in a local bookshop. As an avid reader and collector of books, I got in touch with Roo about her bespoke shelf compositions on getting home that day!

Everything about the process is clearly explained, including the timescale. As I live a fair way from Roo I decided to put the collection together myself. I loved this experience, although it was a bit like choosing your 8 discs for Desert Island Discs, and there were a few changes along the way!

Roo was there to help and guide at all stages and then I just had to kerb my impatience to see the finished product!

When the parcel arrived, wrapped in many protective layers, I couldn’t wait to get to the prize,  like a child with a pass the parcel!

I don’t have enough superlatives to explain how excellent the painting is. I was smiling then and still smile every time I walk past it, hanging on a wall in my lounge.

Thank you so much Roo. Jan x”

(and thank you too, Jan, for making me smile with your kind words!)
‘A Whole Life’ named after the wonderful book by Robert Seethaler
More About Bespoke Shelf Portraits

Three New Paintings…

1 May 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Blog
Next weekend an exhibition opens at Byard Art in Cambridge: ‘The Story of Art’, exploring the power of narrative art.
The show runs from 5th May until 1st June,
and will include three new Shelf Portrait paintings of mine:-)‘Type Is Beautiful’ reflects back to my days studying Typographic Design at the London College of Printing and celebrates a love of, and fascination for, lettering.
‘Type Is Beautiful’ oil on canvas 40x40cm

‘Drama’ presents an array of much loved dramatists and their well known  plays, taken from the shelves of an actor friend.

When I was a teenager I was introduced to the likes of Bertolt Brecht and Stephen Berkoff, (both at once, with my first non-West End theatre experience being Berkoff’s adaptation of Brecht’s The Trial) and for a while  immersed in full on in-yer-face tiny theatres, where there were often not many more audience members than cast, and the actors were literally shouting in your face – I’m not sure If I’d be brave enough now!
‘Drama’ oil on canvas 30x60cm
‘Thinking To Some Purpose’ (something I’ve not yet quite got the hang of myself!) came out of a collaboration with a Pelican book collector, after a discussion about all the fascinating titles these friendly iconic paperbacks have…
‘Thinking To Some Purpose’ oil on canvas 40x60cm
Joining the new ‘Poetry Please’ Limited Edition print this week is the new ‘Poetry Please’ Book Art Card 🙂
A galaxy of poems old and new….
Poetry Please!
Last weekend I spent a lot of time enjoying the beautiful combination of bluebells and baby beech leaves. What a match made in heaven!
Best Wishes,
RooCurrently Reading (and thoroughly enjoying!): BUT – Life’s Not Like That, Is It? Stories of Disruption and Digression by Boff Whalley

Harrogate PBFA Book Fair

16 March 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Art Events, Events
The sign of a good book fair
www.pbfa.org

We are delighted to invite you to the

HARROGATE BOOK FAIR – New venue

Friday 21st March, 12 noon – 6pm
& Saturday 22nd March, 10am – 4pm

The Old Swan Hotel, Swan Road, HG1 2SR

To see the exhibitors and highlights please click here.

Download your free entry ticket here

I will be there promoting my Bespoke Shelf Portraits Commissions,

along with some Bookshelf Art prints and cards 🙂

We look forward to welcoming you!