Friday, August 14, 2009

A Place For Everything And Everything In Its Place

The title of this post refers to my having another mega clearout. This one is even more mega than the last one. I am going through everything with a fine toothed comb and I am being quite ruthless in disposing of things I don't need or use any longer. Life is far too short to spend hours rumaging through items to find something. Hopefully I will soon have everything in its place.

I made a bit of a blog booboo the other day. I pressed publish post instead of save and I had to delete my incomplete post. What a shame you cannot put a post back into draft. It would have saved me a lot of time. I will be very careful with that in future.

This is part II of The Woman Who Planted Trees series. It has been a long time coming and I bet you cannot remember what part I looked like.
I have produced 8 new bird drawings this week. Here are 4 of them. I will probably make them into greetings cards. Hearts are my favourite icon at the moment.
The birds inspired me to do a bit of practice bird embroidery. I found it a lot harder than I expected as my machine kept doing its own thing. You can tell it is a practice piece as I didn't bother to iron out the creases...haha.

This is one of the roses in our garden from summers past when there was a touch of sun and a little moisture. Pretty isn't it?


A greetings card I bought on holiday in Cornwall a couple of years ago. I was very drawn by the beautiful colours and the delicacy of the artwork. It is by Sam Lauren Smith and she is an artist who produces a lot of her work as greetings cards and prints. Her paintings are quite mythic in subject matter with lots of trees and birds (just up my street...haha). Here is her website.
Penny Williams is a designer/maker of handmade jewellery and metal-work. She has some gorgeous quirky pieces on her website here. The majority of her humorous characters are cats, dogs and chickens and she gives them lovely little personalities all of their own.


Leopard Brooch
It's A Dog's Life Pendulum


Flying Chicken Brooch


This beautifully whimsical print is Zebra by Angela Harding. Angela is a painter/printmaker with a beautiful style and a lovely website here.



Now that the rain has abated temporarily and summer has returned, it is once again time for tea in the garden. If you are eating from the chinaware below then you are very lucky indeed. There are so many gorgeous patterns and designs on everything these days but particularly china. These items can be found among many other delights here at Artedona.


This has to be my favourite design. These butterflies are exquisite. This is Filet a Papillons by Alberto Pinto.
A stunning design by Gien called Cherry but you may find it difficult to decide where the pattern ends and the food starts.
and tasting tea from these beauties but always with the little finger extended. This design is Frivole by Bernardaud and is deliciously elegant.
My eldest brother and his partner have gone away for the weekend so we have been kitten and cat sitting. The kittens are not kittens any longer but have reached that lovely sinuously skinny and leggy stage. They are into everything though and are probably the feline equivalent of the human toddler but without the tantrums. They are spending most of their time in the garden racing to the tops of trees, poking frogs in the ponds, jumping over the fences into the neighbours gardens , in fact, all over the shop and behind the counter. Suddenly all is quiet and they are fast asleep.


Abbey just coming awake.

I had to gently dissuade Poppy from taking a pot shot at the bee at the top of this plant. Stung kitty is not pleasant.
Licketty taking a short break from his mischief making.
If you love gardens and you love art you will adore the artistic gardens of David Suff. He is a highly acclaimed and awarded artist who uses the techniques of printmaking and coloured pencil to achieve his stunning results. I didn't realise that coloured pencils could look this vibrant and detailed. The depth of colour he achieves is outstanding. I could be very happy wandering leisurely through his art gardens on a summer evening. He gives his work intriguing titles too. You can see lots more of his work on his website here. Don't forget to click on the numbers below and to enlarge each of the small images to see the entire site, including the commissioned section. It is well worth it. The three images below are David's work.


Conversation In A Shadowed Garden
Where Time And Memory Merge
Strange Boat
Yuri Poberezhny is a Russian graphic pen and ink artist of great talent. I love his style, subject matter and the incredible detail he achieves. As primarily a pen and ink artist myself I can appreciate just how long it must take him to produce the images. His work has the look of stunning Russian fairytale illustrations although it also has a very contemporary feel. He works as a teacher in junior art school and his inspirations are garnered from the children, his town and his country and memories of childhood. You can find ten pages of Yuri's illustrations on the great Artnow.ru website here and he also has a page on the Saatchi website here. A great talent.






26 comments:

Dolores said...

Cathy, first of all I love your blog header. It is just so colourful. Your "Woman Who Planted Trees" and the new bird drawings are delightful. The rest, well, I just needed to be uplifted and your collection of artists did just that. Great collection and you included dishes! I must remember the name David Suff. Gorgeous - as are the kitties.

Cathy said...

Thanks Dolores. I went a bit mad with the colours of the blog header but I will make the next one more subdued. Glad you like the rest of the stuff I have posted. David Suff is a genius with watercolour pencil. A difficult medium in my experience.

andamento said...

Fantastic again. I really like your bird drawings and if I could make an embroidery like the one you did I'd be well pleased with myself! Love the Poberezhny drawings, there's just so much to look at, you spoil us!

Cathy said...

Thanks very much Anne. Glad you like the posts including Yuri P's drawings. There is so much to see there. What I wouldn't give for his talent.

Crafty Green Poet said...

another lovely post, what wonderful things yo share with us. That is a particularly striking photo of Poppy, she looks so thoughtful!

Thanks for your comment on my blog, yes, you're right, we all need to pay more attention to what's happening in nature, our birds are disappearing so fast. There are still cuckoos in the Scottish highlands and islands (Skye is full of them!) but they're disappearing so fast everywhere else

sea-blue-sky & abstracts said...

Another visual feast, there are so many talented people! (Including you, Cathy). BFN. Lesley

Cathy said...

Hi Juliette. I am glad to hear there are still cuckoos around. I hope it hasn't come that they will not be heard in this area again. That would be very sad.

Have your heard the old saying;

The cuckoo comes in April
He sings his song in May
In the middle of June he whistles his tune
And in July he flies away.

Cathy said...

Thanks very much for the kind words Lesley.

Holly Zemak said...

If only my garden could look like the gardens in David Suff's images. What wonderful color. I also enjoyed the jewelry of Penny Williams. Your chicken images are delightful and they do make great embroidered pieces.

bunnits said...

The machine embroidery can be a challenge at first. And you are right, they do seem to want to do their own thing until you get the knack of it. Don't give up.

In addition to your usual visual treats, I really enjoyed the kitty photos. They look like they were lots of fun.

Chatters said...

What an amazing site. Lovely pictures of artists work, and very interesting to read. Your art work is also really beautiful. Loved your bird drawings

Heres my site if you would like to have a peep(-:

http://artycat-chatters.blogspot.com/

Cathy said...

Thanks Holly. I will have to get the other four chickens finished...so many chickens - so little time.

David Suff is amazing. We would spend all day in our gardens if they looked like those in his artwork.

Cathy said...

Hi Melissa. Yes the kitties (well young cats now really) are delightful. It is wonderful to watch them play with each other in the garden.

Regarding machine embroidery - it is definitely an art to be acquired. I have seen amazingly detailed work from other people so it is obviously possible but probably takes quite a well to get the knack.

Cathy said...

Hi Amanda. Thanks for the lovely comments on my blog. Glad you enjoyed your visit. Have popped over to yours and left a comment. We share interests in birds, cats and nature too.

Snowcatcher said...

Wonderful website! Wanted to tell you that you can save publish post in draft if you booboo. Just edit the post, from edit posts in your dashboard. You can change anything, even just add one space and save, it will be saved as a draft and no longer on your blog until you hit publish again. You can repost again later after you've finished.

ArtPropelled said...

Your "Woman who plants trees" is my favourite piece in this post. I love the potted tree and the woman's hands. Brilliant!

Cathy said...

Thank you so much Snowcatcher. I am glad there is a way out of my error. Backtracking cost me a lot of time. I will keep your comment handy and then if it happens again I will know what to do.

Cathy said...

Thanks so much Robyn. The figure and hands are my mum's who posed for me but I changed the face...she didn't mind. I loved the tree so much I have made them central to my new drawing to be posted this week.

Acornmoon said...

I like your woman who planted trees. Oddly enough I have just purchased a copy of "The man who planted trees'. We must be on the same wavelength!

Pomona said...

Just discovered your blog - I love seeing the work of the different artists - and yours as well. It is great to discover different artists, and see examples of very different sorts of work. I have just blogged about an amazing heraldic artist - I have known him a while, but had never seen his work before his work and it quite took my breath away when I saw it!

Pomona x

Cathy said...

I love that book Valerie. It is such a heartwarming story and I have two copies both illustrated by different printmakers.

Cathy said...

Hi Pomona. Thanks for visiting and your nice comments. I will pop over to your blog and have a browse.

Caroline said...

I'm late, I'm late!... suddenly realised tis Sunday and I haven't commented! Anyway, favourites are your chickens - have always adored chooks in any form. Was particularly nice to see the embroidery - note to self, must get on with distant stitch course! Lots of other things I loved too - your peach rose - just delicious, the cups - wow, I love Frivole, but reckon it costs an arm and a leg! Looking forward to your next post - not long to go!

Cathy said...

Hi Caroline. I can't say I am impressed with my embroidery but hopefully it will improve with time. I agree about Frivole. I daren't look at the price, but oh it is so gorgeous. Glad you like the chicks. I have another four on the drawing board. Have gone a bit chicken mad I think..haha.

~ Phyllis ~ said...

Wow! Cathy, you have done some remodeling on your blog. I love the new header picture and your horse avatar. What an uplifting visit. So many colorful things to see. I love the Rainbow fish.
Hope you have a wonderful blog break. Looking forward to your return.

Cathy said...

Hi Phyllis. It must be quite a while since you were here. As you say, I have had a bit of a change around. I like to keep things fresh on the sidebars. It is lovely to see you back to blogging again although you have had a very sad time. I hope things are looking up for you and yours now.

See you when I return to blogland.