Summer Has Arrived

This is a detail of a pen and ink drawing with digital colouring called Little Thief. This is a larger version of the above but a lot of the detail gets lost when the image is a large portrait style one.

White Lady

Pen and Ink drawing entitled Kathryn

I love the patination and colours of this copper weathervane. It was made in the mid-1800's and is in the collection of the Beamish Museum, which is an open air museum of social, agricultural and industrial history of Great Britain.

These two images are the work of celebrated Irish artist Barry Castle. She was born in Dublin in 1935. There is very little about her on the Internet but she has been painting since 1968 so she must have produced a lot of work. Her images are very contemporary and mysterious and very sought after.

Girl With Yellow Flowers

Two Girls In A Rainforest

For those of you who love folk music, here is a song on youtube by the now defunct Irish band Emmett Spiceland. It has wonderful harmonies and beautiful voices. Such a shame they broke up.

Soak up some outrageous colours with the paintings of Vladimir Olenberg who is a Russian artist. There are some quite incredible Russian artists around. You can see more of his amazing work here at Bestoff.info.

This gorgeous cockerel needlepoint tapestry cushion designed by Elian McCready represents my longest lasting UFO. I first saw the design years ago when a friend, Hannah, gave me an Ehrmann tapestry catalogue that had belonged to her mother. I thought, yet, that is one needlepoint I must do as I had fallen in love with the beautiful design and colours. Unfortunately, to date, I have only completed the head, comb and wattles. Not because I do not want to finish it but because I am loath to complete another needlepoint that needs stretching on completion. Nearly all the needlepoint work I do now is done with Victorian cross stitch which means twice the wool, twice the stitches but no stretching required. I think I may have to follow the colour chart of the design with a piece of my own canvas and use two ply Appletons wool. I will probably wrap up the existing canvas and wool and donate it to a local charity shop for someone else to finish. It really is too nice a design to leave as a permanent UFO.

Spring brings us a wealth of amazingly zingy greens. This is a path atop an ancient and historic moat belonging to a ruined castle where the great and good of Saxon England offered the Norman William their allegiance and the crown in 1066. Not a sight of anything now other than peace and quiet now.

This lovely angel is pointing the way to heaven for her erstwhile human companion. I have photographed this one many times with the leaves in all seasons. It is placed on a high bank and if you are not careful you can end up falling quite a distance. Not pleasant among the brambles.

Another sweet little monumental angel which decorates a child's grave in a local cemetery. This one is beautifully artistic.

The English bluebells are just coming to an end now. Such a shame that they don't last longer. They really make the woods and fields magical.

Have you noticed an abundance of aquilegia around at the moment? My mother says they used to call it "Granny's Nightcap" when they were children and I suppose it does look a bit like a night cap (with a large helping of imagination of course). It is also called Columbine and Granny's Bonnet.

These three pieces below are the work of Angie Hughes who is a UK textile artist and tutor. She is particularly inspired by poetry, text and the natural world. She produces beautifully embroidered work, textile and altered books and mixed media artwork and a display of her art can be found on here website here.

Hung With Stars

Trinity (detail)

Three Spikey Flowers

The paintings and ceramic pieces below are the work of artist and printmaker Hilke MacIntyre. She is married to painter/printmaker Ian MacIntyre and they share a great website here. She produces paintings, ceramics, linocuts and illustrations and there is lots to see on their site. Hilke is German born but now lives in Scotland with her family. She describes her work as simplified and figurative in style and is inspired by, among other things, primitive and folk art. Her work is delightful with great attention paid to pattern and shape. Her work can be found in many galleries in the UK.

Blue Bird

Picking Rocket

Market - Fish Stall

Garden With Bird

Market - A Bunch Of Carrots

This lovely ceramic is a called A Bunch Of Flowers.

This is a ceramic piece called Digging, Raking, Cutting, Picking.

These are Art Angels greetings cards by Hilke MacIntyre. The are called Along The Beach (L) and Along The Burn (R) The detail on them is really lovely and they are much too nice to send to anyone. They will stay in my card collection...ha ha. (I have found a local shop which sells lots of the Art Angels printmaker cards so I am very happy about that.)

Summer appears to have arrived early in the UK. We had our first temperature of 24C today. Another two degrees and that is the limit of my comfort zone...ha ha. I strongly suspect that it may get very much higher than that in the next three months. The weather forecasters have threatened us with temperatures of over 30C and that is way too hot for me. Perhaps they will be wrong...(hopes).