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Happy New Year!

2 February 2026
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Blog

Happy New Year!!

I hope you all had an enjoyable festive season?

 Mine was quiet and cosy with sprinkles of family gatherings dotted about – just how I like it 🙂
My latest bespoke paintings were completed and most gratefully received in time for Christmas… one of them for a ten year old’s January birthday (no photos of this one yet!)
Happy David with his bespoke Shelf Portrait – a surprise gift from his wife 🙂
..and this one commissioned by Penny, for herself (the best kind of present!)
This week I have been putting the finishing touches to an Observer’s Books painting. I had it on my studio wall as a work-in-progress during winter Open Studios and so many people connected with the half dozen titles I had painted.
One visitor remembered their grandmother gifting them ‘The Observer’s Book of British Geology’ for their 8th birthday, and they grew up to become a geologist as a result!Which Observer’s books do you connect with?
Observer’s Books final details….
When I was quite young, I used to enjoy sitting cross-legged on the floor, pulling Observer’s books off the shelf one by one and looking at all the illustrations.
This was a somewhat hazardous pastime, as the bookshelf was behind the door and there were often three older brothers running around the house with a tendency to throw doors open with gusto – possibly in the knowledge that there might be the bonus of squashing a little sister behind it and extracting a loud squeak!!

Winter Open Studios This Weekend :-)

3 December 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Blog
Life is starting to feel distinctly Christmassy this week!
Portrait by photographer Peter Defty

Just thought I’d show my face and show you this fabulous portrait of me by photographer Peter Defty, taken a few years ago. It’s not often I get on with a photo of myself, but I love this one!
When I turned up at his studio he had spent a happy  hour building the pile of vintage annuals for me to perch on top of… genius idea!
This photograph was included in a stunning exhibition of Peter’s portrait photography ‘The Outlaw Project’ at Dean Clough Galleries last summer.
I can’tpromise to be perched on a pile on annuals in my own studio this weekend, but do come and visit me anyway!!
Visit me in my studio this Saturday & Sunday
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 🙂

**Please Note: we are not open on Friday 5th**
(please email me if you are unable to visit on Saturday or Sunday and would like to make a private appointment for Friday)

Park & Ride!
If you are travelling by car, be aware that parking in Hebden Bridge can be tricky. I would advise you to take advantage of the Park & Ride at Mytholmroyd train station car park, running every 10-15 minutes on Saturday & Sunday.
New Square format Card designs 🙂

New in my online shop this week are these fresh square designs to replace the old long cards designs: ‘Odyssey‘; ‘Fairy Books‘ and ‘Scotland‘, along with a new rainbow design ‘Penguin Pride‘.
Don’t Forget!!
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!!
Roo’s Shop

If I don’t see you over the Open Studios weekend, then I wish you all a Very Merry Festive Season 🙂
Roo

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

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

Southern Lights

8 March 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Blog
S is for Southern Lights
Hannah Lawson with ‘Southern Lights’

My latest painting was inspired by Hannah Lawson, a fabulous wildlife artist and an Antarctic expedition guide, whose shelves are full of the adventures of Ernest Shackleton, Captain Robert Scott and others in the ‘Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration‘, alongside books on Antarctic wildlife and geography. So fascinating to take a glimpse into this land of extremes and explorations…

Here is Hannah on a visit to my studio, holding the resulting painting ‘Southern Lights‘.

‘Southern Lights‘ and ‘Poetry Please‘ are off down to London to join ‘007‘, ‘Think Like A Tree‘, ‘Women In Blue‘ and ‘Every Grain of Rice‘ in Battersea Park for the Affordable Art Fair.
The Affordable Art Fair: Battersea Spring
takes place on:
Wednesday 12th March (Private View 5-9pm)
Thursday 13th & Friday 14th (11am-5pm & 5-9pm)
Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th 10am-6pm.
You’ll find my paintings at Stand A7

You can use the link below to get your exclusive complimentary tickets courtesy of Nicholas Bowlby Gallery !!
Free Tickets for AAF Battersea Here

It is 9am on this fine morning and the sun is just rising over the hill behind my house, a sure sign that Spring is most definitely starting to Spring!
Once the leaves are unfurling on the trees in the woods the sun will be once again hidden from view until late in the morning, so I do especially enjoy this in-between time of year.
The crocuses are looking so gorgeously gold in the sunshine 🙂

 

Best Wishes,
Roo

Currently Reading: Grace Paley: The Collected Stories

Waves lapping on the Shore…

27 February 2025
Roo Waterhouse
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Categories: Blog
W is for Waves gently lapping on the sand….
New A4 Art Print ‘Beside The Seaside’

Is February an appropriate time of year to start talking about the seaside?

That’s got to be a resounding YES from me after a weekend next to the beach on Anglesey!

Bracing wind, sunshine, very brief paddles in the icy water and plenty of seabirds: Redshank; Turnstone; Shag; Oystercatcher; Curlew and various Seagulls – all identified with the help of my trusty Ladybird Book of Sea and Estuary Birds

And so now seems the perfect time to release the A4 art print of ‘Beside The Seaside’, which you will now find in my online shop. Gather yourself some inspiration for your summer holiday plans 🙂 
Seaside A4 Print

You can find out a bit more about Anglesey by clicking on my holiday snaps. For my holiday reading I took ‘To The Lighthouse’ by Virginia Woolf. I never made it to the lighthouse at South Stack though, as I couldn’t quite face the climb back up, so I just enjoyed the view from a distance…
C is for Clearance Sale!

Spending time by the sea gave me pause for some reflection, both personal and business.

I have been heading towards focusing more time on my painting and less time on all the merchandise management, and with this in mind I have taken the decision to discontinue my Book Art Mugs. Apologies, but to make up for it I am having as Super almost-Spring Mug Clearance Sale!!

All remaining mugs are 20% off at just £12 each

Snap one up before they are all gone…
20% off Book Art Mugs