Saturday, November 15, 2008

Julia Manning Prints and Japanese Woodcut cards

Have you ever wondered what is inside a pear? Well now you know. It is the pear people of course but they cannot be seen by everyone.
I absolutely love the combination of black, white and red. It is perfect for drawings. I have been doing a series of black and red birds this week and these are two of them. Very fine feathers indeed.
This scene was inspired by a picture of a lovely applique. Not too keen on the colours I have used though. I think something brighter might have looked better.
This is my 2007 Christmas card. The snowy scene was from one of my own photographs of a rare snowy weather. The snow lasted a whole day.
These are cards by Mocchi Mocchi and are Japanese woodcuts. You can find their website here. I love the minimal palette they have used and the designs are really lovely.




The images below are the work of Somerset artist and printmaker Julia Manning who can be found here.






















Goodness, my 49th blog post already and it only seems like the other day that I started blogging. I must admit I am enjoying it much more than I thought I would. Originally, I started blogging several times a week but I have gradually settled into just blogging weekly. That is quite enough really as time is always short. I really admire those people who have the commitment and "enough to say" to be able to blog daily. I certainly wouldn't be able to produce daily artwork although some do. I take my proverbial hat off to them.

Next week I will be having my first blog giveaway. I think I know what it will be but minds do get changed, particularly mine, so I am not saying anything else at the moment. I have been lucky enough to win 2 blog giveaways and I am thrilled with both of them, so I think it is time I returned the favour, and what better time to do it than my 50th post. All will be revealed as they say in the best circles.

I am still finding lovely cards to post and have found another three this week. One of them is a Christmas card and the other two general purpose. They are illustrations of a Japanese company called Mocchimocchi and I think they are quite beautiful. I believe they are from woodcuts. They have a website which is in Japanese but it is nice just to look at the artwork.

My featured artist is from Somerset and is a printmaker and painter called Julia Manning. She has an extensive website here. She has travelled widely and has produced work connected with her travels. Her work is very much concerned with nature and animals and birds and is produced as linocuts, etchings and woodcuts. She also sells a range of cards on her site. I saw some of her work at the Society of Wildlife Artists exhibition at the Mall Galleries a few weeks ago and was very impressed with her raven images. Apparently she has access to draw the ravens at the Tower of London - my favourite place for raven photographs. The legend is that if the ravens ever leave the Tower, England will fall, so there are always a certain number of ravens living there and a couple of spares just in case. They all have names and even have a Tower warden just to look after them. Things have certainly improved for them since the days they scavanged the bodies of the poor unfortunates who lost their heads on Tower Green.

12 comments:

Sandy Mastroni said...

Your 2007 Christmas card is wonderful Cathy . I always enlarge your work to appreciate it more....and Julia Manning is someone I didn't know .... thank you .
She is really good .

~ Phyllis ~ said...

Cathy,
I just love your 2007 Christmas Card. The cows, tree and snow remind me of back home in Kentucky in the winter. Love that tree.

Cathy said...

Glad you like the card and Julia Manning Sandy. There is so much wonderful artwork on the internet it is a pity now to share it with others.

Cathy said...

I thought you would like that one Phyllis. Kentucky must be very cold in winter if that reminds you of it. Alas we rarely get snow here anymore.

Unknown said...

Hey there!

I'm kinda dropping by randomly because your link is on my blog & I'm reading through them in the middle of the night.

& I thought I'd stop for a second to tell you about this new selling site I found. It's called ArtFire.com & you should check it out.

It's still really, really new (still in beta) but it's heading in a really good direction! They are already buying advertising online & in print magazines to bring in traffic to the site. (It's already got almost as much traffic as indiepublic.com)

It's got stats for shop views so you know where your customers are coming from! I know! Gasp! Faint! Right? hehe

& it's just $7 a month (for the first 5000 artists) to list & sell as much as you can FOREVER. $7 a month no matter what! I signed up on that alone! haha

Anyhoo, it is new so there aren't zillions of people using it (which is good & bad) but I thought you might want to take a look at it. With the ad campaign they are working on kicking in soon (or so they are saying), I think it's going to be a good place to start listing!

If you sign up, give me a yell & let me know what you think!

Always,
Amy

Cathy said...

Thanks for the info Amy. I will check it out. Sounds interesting.

A bird in the hand said...

The grand tour, as usual. I enjoyed all of it. Thank you Cathy.

Cathy said...

Thanks very much Colette.

Holly Zemak said...

The 2007 Christmas Card is my favorite image this week. Beautifully done. Reminds me of Vermont where we were two weeks ago, when it did snow!

Cathy said...

Thanks Holly. I have always liked that one especially as it is an actual tree near to my home.

Trudy Honeycutt ~ Folk Artist said...

Hi, Cathy!! As always....such wonderful art to share here with the rest of us!! I absolutely LOVE the cows in the snow!! Reminds me that the next time it snows here, I need to dash over to the nearby cow pasture and shoot some pics!! Can't wait for your give-away!! I know it will be wonderful!! Take care!! Hugs, Trudy in Colorado

Cathy said...

Many thanks Trudy.