• About
    • Studio
    • Exhibitions
    • Socials
    • Commission a Painting
  • Available Work
  • Notes from the Studio
  • Interiors
  • Contact
Menu

Hannah Ivory Baker

  • About
    • About
    • Studio
    • Exhibitions
    • Socials
    • Commission a Painting
  • Available Work
  • Notes from the Studio
  • Interiors
  • Contact

Notes from the Studio

This space is a place for reflection. On painting, on process and on the rhythms of studio life alongside motherhood. These are not announcements or instructions, but quiet notes written from within the practice. Thoughts that sit alongside the work, shaped by time, attention and the ongoing act of making.


Early light in the studio. Before the day begins.

Painting in the Margins: Motherhood, Time and the Studio

December 13, 2025

Motherhood has altered not just my schedule, but the way I paint. Working in fragments and early hours has made the work more immediate, more decisive. This post reflects on how limited time, attention and domestic rhythms have reshaped my studio practice, and what that has quietly given back in return.

Read More
In Notes from the studio Tags Notes from the studio

Latest Posts

Featured
The Warmth That Remains
May 28, 2026
The Warmth That Remains
May 28, 2026

A reflection on working with a bolder, warmer palette than usual, and the balance between allowing colour to lead while still holding atmosphere, depth and restraint. The Warmth That Remains explores the lingering glow of sunset, the darkening of land beneath a heated sky, and the quiet residue of light after the day has almost gone.

May 28, 2026
Where the Light Rests
May 5, 2026
Where the Light Rests
May 5, 2026

A reflection on the way light can settle across a landscape, not as something dramatic or fleeting, but as a held presence. Where the Light Rests explores the quieter pull of atmosphere, the balance between movement and stillness, and the way a painting can become a place for colour, memory and feeling to gather.

May 5, 2026
A Stillness Between Flowers
April 2, 2026
A Stillness Between Flowers
April 2, 2026

A Stillness Between Flowers reflects on the gentler side of painting, where atmosphere, space and the life between forms matter as much as the flowers themselves.

April 2, 2026
On Scale: Why Some Paintings Need to Be Large
March 24, 2026
On Scale: Why Some Paintings Need to Be Large
March 24, 2026

Scale in painting is not merely a question of size. It changes the way a painting is made, the way light moves across its surface, and the way a viewer stands before it. Some subjects simply need more space.

March 24, 2026
Waterlilies
January 20, 2026
Waterlilies
January 20, 2026

This painting began without a plan. Waterlilies arrived not as an image to replicate, but as a sensation. A memory of light sitting on water, of growth and stillness existing at once. The surface was built slowly, interrupted and returned to, allowing forms to surface and recede rather than resolve. It lives in the space between seeing and remembering, asking to be spent time with rather than decoded.

January 20, 2026
IMG_5135 copy.jpg
January 12, 2026
A Quiet Refusal of Form
January 12, 2026

This work resists arriving anywhere fixed. Forms loosen and soften, refusing to settle into something fully named. What remains is not an image but a state, shaped by hesitation, layering and time. The painting holds its ambiguity carefully, allowing space for looking without resolution, and for meaning to shift rather than solidify.

January 12, 2026
Alla Prima and the Discipline of Letting Go
January 5, 2026
Alla Prima and the Discipline of Letting Go
January 5, 2026

Alla prima is often described as speed or spontaneity, but for me it is a discipline. Working wet into wet demands clarity, restraint and trust. Each decision narrows the field of possibility, and letting go becomes as important as knowing when to act. This essay reflects on painting directly, accepting uncertainty, and learning to stop before the work is over explained.

January 5, 2026
A Moment Held
January 5, 2026
A Moment Held
January 5, 2026

A Moment Held explores the quiet intensity of a pause in time, a moment where nothing visibly changes, yet everything feels charged. The landscape remains intentionally ambiguous, with hovering forms and an unsettled horizon that resists clarity or resolution. As the year draws to a close, the work reflects on the value of slowing down, of allowing space for moments that are fully inhabited before being quietly released.

January 5, 2026
At Dusk, the Sea Waited
December 21, 2025
At Dusk, the Sea Waited
December 21, 2025

A reflection on dusk as a threshold, this studio note explores memory, stillness, and the quiet act of waiting at the water’s edge, where light softens and time momentarily loosens.

December 21, 2025
Still Life, Movement and the Quiet Refusal to Be Decorative
December 15, 2025
Still Life, Movement and the Quiet Refusal to Be Decorative
December 15, 2025

Still life has never felt still to me. Flowers shift constantly, even as they sit in water. They open, lean, bruise and fade. Painting them is not an act of preservation but of attention. I am less interested in holding a moment in place than in acknowledging its movement, its brief insistence on being noticed. The challenge is not to describe what I see, but to allow the painting to remain alive, unsettled, and unresolved in the same way the subject is.

December 15, 2025

SeeN something you like but it has already sold?
Get in touch with me to organise a commission.

Click Here to EMAIL ME


Subscribe

Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates.

We respect your privacy.

Thank you!

© Hannah Ivory Baker 2025