Sunday, October 19, 2008

Christmas Chickens and Giving A Kittie A Good Home

This is "Lady With Birds". Quite self-explanatory really. Love those colours.
Here is the lovely kittie picture and card I received from Sandy Mastroni as the winner of her blog giveaway. I am a great admirer of Sandy's wonderful artwork and I am really pleased to own these two characters. The kittie has such a sweet, appealing expression.
This gorgeous image is a greeting card of Rene Gruau. I love the simple, clean palette and the graphic quality. It loosely inspired my lady with birds image above.
I went slightly mad with flowers with this drawing. The flowers are watercoloured. Love that mad hair.
This is a drawing which will be digitally coloured when I get a spare moment. My favourite birds, of course, and I fancy they will be brightly coloured when completed. Hopefully they will be ready for next week's blogpost. These are examples of a variety of images on the flower theme made famous by the very talented Orla Kiely but in my own designs and colours. They make lovely greetings cards when mounted singly.


This work was created by Shirley Isaacs who is a fellow blogger and can be found here
She has some lovely creations on her blog so pop over and take a look.
Here are the Christmas chickens. Not looking too Christmassy at the moment but that will change soon.
This is the Christmas card that I am using for inspiration for my chickens drawing. The background of the chickens will be similar to this lovely snowy scene. This card is a linocut by Robert Gilmorr who will be one of my featured artists soon.

The following images are from Suzanne Gyseman. Her website is a delight and can be found here.



















My lovely blog giveaway kittie has arrived in England and found a very welcoming home with me. He has a lovely folksy look to him and he is sitting waiting to start his tea and cupcakes. I love him to bits and thanks very much to Sandy for giving him away to a new home. I love the greeting card she also sent of the humorous lady with the lovely woolly cardi. You can see the pictures above.

Christmas is fast approaching and I recently started deciding what to draw for my 2008 Christmas card. I make these for my brother to send to his customers and have been doing so for many years now. They are always pen and ink and nearly always have an animal or bird as the central image. I love chickens so I decided this year to have a poultry theme. You can see the start of my effort above. It will eventually have a field and hedges and trees covered in snow behind the chickens and will have quite a graphic look to it rather than the naturalistic pointillism I have done in prior years. Of course snow is easy, just leave the paper white...lol.

I have included, this week, a peek at the creations of a lovely blog lady called Shirley Isaacs. She is a beader and knitter and is very interested in textiles and colour and art. She has a lovely blog here with her own work and she also features the work of other artists and craftspeople (myself included). Pop over and have a look at her blog.

My featured artist this week is Suzanne Gyseman who lives in Scotland. She originally trained as a botanist and has worked in a variety of jobs before turning to full time art. I have been following her work for several years now and I find it quite enchanting. I think she could be called something of a visionary with a great interest in folklore, myths and legends. She is also very interested in nature and the natural world and this interest shows very clearly in her work. Her images are very colourful and intriguingly stylised. Her website here is definitely worth a visit as she has lots of her artwork on display.

I have been quite busy drawing and painting myself this week and I am particularly pleased with the lady with the birds and the stripey dress. I like the palette I have chosen for that one although it is quite bright. I don't think you can ever go wrong with stripes. See what you think anyway.

16 comments:

~ Phyllis ~ said...

Hi Cathy,
I like the Lady With The Birds. Her dress is so colorful. I do like color. Thanks for the many links in this post, especially the knitting blog.
That is so cool that you make your brother's Christmas cards.
Isn't it amazing how many talented people there are in this world. Doesn't seem fair that those actors in Hollywood make so much money. It's so much more enjoyable to look at the artistic talents of people all around us then to watch a movie or TV.

Sandy Mastroni said...

Love your lady's crazy hair
and I am glad the kitty is in England having tea with you !!

Cathy said...

I couldn't agree more Phyllis. There are so many unsung talented people around (and I am not talking about myself here)who are not recognised. Perhaps that is why we have blogs, to blow their trumpets for them...lol.

Cathy said...

Thanks Sandy. I am very pleased he arrived safely. Now I just have to introduce him to my two flesh and blood kitties...lol.

Old World Primitives said...

Lady With Birds is so lovely.. both the drawing and the colors.. she is definitely my favorite this week!

I really like Suzanne Gyseman's work too, I must follow your link to check out more of what she has to offer.

~Stephanie

Cathy said...

Thanks Stephanie. That is my favourite one too. It is funny how some pictures just seem to work. Definitely check out Suzanne Gyseman. Her work is really lovely and she has lots on her site.

Anonymous said...

I also love your lady's crazy hair! The drawn texture is great - I feel like I could reach through my monitor and touch it. And I love the feathers on your Christmas chickens... more great texture!

Cathy said...

Thanks very much Suzanne. Kind of you to visit.

Holly Zemak said...

I like the idea for your Christmas Chickens - can't wait to see the back ground. Shirleys blog is inspiring, I'm off to read a little more.

Cathy said...

I am just finishing it off now Holly so it should be ready to post on Sunday. Shirley has some lovely images on her blog.

Trudy Honeycutt ~ Folk Artist said...

Cathy, I never cease to be amazed at all the lovely art found on your blog....yours and others...all fabulous!!! Thank you so much for your inspiring posts!!! Hope all is well over your way!! Hugs, Trudy in Colorado, USA

Cathy said...

Hi Trudy, thanks for the lovely comments about my art and my featured artists. Lovely to receive nice feedback. Everything is fine over here and I hope the same is true for you and yours.

zukzuk said...

Love that dress! I also really like that simple bird illustration that might end up as a Christmas card? As a fellow colouroholic it's refreshing sometimes just to use a simple palette or a bit of monochrome isn't it?

As I was looking through your post about the knits and stiches show I suddenly got a hankering to do a little knitting -- uh oh, more hats for our family...

Vosie said...

Thank you for sharing your source of inspirations and for the wonderful links on your blog! Your work is unique and interesting; do you draw with pencil or pen and scan, or go digital from the start? Best wishes from Singapore :)

Cathy said...

Thanks Helen. Yes, I like to do a bit of colour and a bit of monochrome in my pictures. Good luck with the knitting. I wish I could knit but when would I find the time...lol?

Cathy said...

Thanks very much for your kind comments Vosie. I draw mostly with pen and ink and then either leave it in monochrome or use watercolour or colour digitally. I very rarely use pencil on its own, but all my works starts off as pen and ink in the initial stage. I am totally in love with my different sized Rotring Rapidograph pens.