Thursday, August 6, 2009

Ceramic Figures and Stripes

This is a digital drawing called Dreaming In Stripes. I have drawn quite a few stripey artworks lately so I will probably have a rest from them. I do like stripes though...!
It has been a while since I posted a quirky drawing so here it is. Balancing On Buttons.
A little bit out of season but this is Winter Fox in ink and watercolour
Does anyone else stockpile greetings cards to keep handy in case of necessity? I have a wonderful collection but unfortunately I like most of them too much to part with them. So, a large collection of cards but only about a fifth of them available for sending to people. My two latest cards are both by Canns Down Press from their Royal Academy range but they do lots of other cards in other ranges. You can find their site here.

Sussex Landscape by Eric Ravilious
Bird's Nest Pattern by Edward Bawden
Harking back to Waterperry; they have some lovely statues in the gardens and these are two of my favourites. Miranda from Shakespeare's The Tempest is below. She resides at one end of the long pond and was sculpted by Tanya Russel. She is well liked by the local spiders judging by the webs on the detail picture.


Lamp of Wisdom by Nathan David. This lovely girl is holding court in the formal garden.
Another lucky charity bookshop find recently was the embroidery book by Verina Warren below. Verina Warren is one of the most talented textile artists in the UK. I have met her at shows and seen her work first hand and it is fabulous. Photos could never do it justice. She paints her backgrounds and then stitches into them to create beautiful textiles. She has a wonderful sense of colour and design. I was pleased to find her book, which, although written in the mid-80s is still very interesting and applicable today. She shows lots of ways in which natural surroundings can be used for contemporary design and embroidery. The book is published by Batsford and can be found here at Amazon UK. But, amazingly enough, I see there are several copies for £0.01. That is even better than my charity shop find. Aren't Amazon amazing for finding out of date book bargains? Verina has a lovely website here with lots of images of her stunning textiles.


Pages from Landscape In Embroidery


Embroidered textiles by Verina Warren.

Dorset Hills
Daisy Field
Music Of The Wind
Has anyone else got a passion for alliums? I think they are absolutely gorgeous flowers. Strange that they are related to the very humble onion. We have quite a few in our garden but there is always room for more and luckily they do spread quite easily. I always ensure a thorough shaking of the seedheed at the end of summer just in case. I expect the slugs feast on them when I am not looking but it makes me feel I am doing something to increase the yield.

We start off quite early in the spring with this beauty.
And going swiftly to this (which is actually not in our garden at all but in a local churchyard).
And stopping off by this on a VERY wet day. (This is one of ours and the poor bee did dry out eventually and live to tell the tale.)
And finally to this which I think is just as beautiful in its own way and very photogenic. I also have a passion for seedheads and alliums are particularly fine. I think I can feel an allium drawing coming on...!
I found the intriguing work of Zoe Rubens whilst I was looking for someone else on the Internet. I was amazed at her talent at both printmaking and ceramic and metal sculpture and altered art. She has developed her own techniques and produces very distinctive and quite complex work. Zoe works from a studio in East Anglia. She has a website here and also a very comprehensive display of her work on her Flickr site here. Well worth a visit.


The Lioness Tamer's Tea Party
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Angel In The Bath Etching
These gorgeous ceramic sculptures were created by the very talented Elya Yalonetski who studied ceramics in Russia before moving to Israel, Moscow and Berlin. I find her work enormously appealing because she likes to sculpt similar subjects to the ones I like to paint and draw ie. angels and ladies with birds on their heads. Her work is whimsical and quirky but beautifully detailed. Elya has an Etsy shop here and you can find lots more of her ceramic delights on the Abramtsevo site here and also on Flickr here.






20 comments:

Dolores said...

Inspiring, as always thank you Cathy. I love the new blog header.

Caroline said...

One of my favourite things to do on a Monday morning is visit your blog for my weekly fix of fab art!! I love your foxy illustration with the patterned trees. Hey! I bought that book by Verena Warren back in the 80's!!! Clever you to find it for a song now. Cards are a weakeness of mine too. Zoe Rubes work is superb - love the Lioness Tamer's T Party!I've not been to her website so will certainly visit soon.
Have a good week, Cathy!

Gillian said...

Hi Cathy - I really love your Winter Fox! I have a card collection too - and keep them all for myself - postcards too! The Lamp of Wisdom scupture is really beautful. G

Holly Zemak said...

I collect greeting cards from many artists. If I am at a craft show I always pick up a few - and find it hard to part with them also. Today is supposed to be hot and humid, so I am enjoying your cool Winter Fox. Verina Warren is amazing, Music of the Winds blows me away.

bunnits said...

I do so enjoy your wonderful blog. After the kidney stone affair and having our internet down for several days afterward, I feel as though I have been in a remote foreign country with no contact with the rest of the world. Viewing your blog makes me feel as though I'm back home.

ArtPropelled said...

Exquisite work you've featured this week (but then you always do). Verina Warren's work is very fine. I've been following Zoe Rubens work on Flickr for some time now. It's fantastic isn't it? I've just recently joined her Grater group for art made from cheese graters. You won't believe how many of her wonderful pieces start with a cheese grater. Love the fox illustration and your new header.

Cathy said...

Thanks Dolores. I had started out to do a pen and ink illustration for my header so I don't know how I ended up with that one..ha ha.

Cathy said...

Hi Caroline. That is lovely to know. That book was a really lucky find as I love her work. Oddly enough I had looked on Amazon prior to finding it to see what she had published but there were no photos. I love it when out-of-date books turn up in charity shops. I see the booksellers are complaining now that Oxfam are putting them out of business by having total stores devoted to books.

Cathy said...

Hi Gillian. I sometimes buy two of a card design. One to keep and one to send, but I never part with my really precious ones. I would love to go through the Christmas card recycle bins to see if there are any I would like to keep for my scrapbooks.

Cathy said...

I do the same Holly. If there is an artist I really like but couldn't afford the artwork, I try to buy cards. The next best thing as far as I'm concerned. Luckily for me most people have greetings cards on display. I am going to a huge craft fair at the end of August so I expect my collection will grow a little.

Cathy said...

That is great Melissa. So sorry about all your problems of late. Hopefully you will have had them all now and your wheel of luck has turned to the top again.

Cathy said...

Thanks Robyn. The cheese grater artworks sounds intriguing. I will have to follow that one up. She is certainly multi-talented.

Acornmoon said...

I have just bought some of those cards, there was such a great selection I nearly bought the shop!

Cathy said...

Hi Valerie, that is really great. Another dedicated collector of cards I see.

Kat Mortensen said...

Miranda's not a fountain, is she? I like the sculpture.

The allium photos are gorgeous!

Kat

Cathy said...

Hi Kat

No Miranda is not a fountain but a beautifully fey sculpture. She really suits her position at the head of the pond. Glad you like the allium shots. I absolutely adore those flowers. I would have a garden full of them if possible. Even the seedheads are lovely.

Crafty Green Poet said...

oh what a lot of lovely things you've shared here! Your winter fox is wonderful, the fox has so much character and the colour scheme is perfect...

Ticking stripes said...

Just discovered your amazing blog - truly inspriational! Its going to take me some time to got through all your old posts but I can see I must!

Cathy said...

Thanks Juliet. I like the colours of that one too. I may do it as greetings cards.

Cathy said...

Thank you Wend. Good luck with the archive visiting. There is a lot of it...haha. I really enjoyed my visit to your lovely blog too.