Back Weekend 20th February

Help..the snow has returned, but only briefly hopefully. How do people cope when they are snowed in for half the year? I take my blue fleecy winter hat off to them. We are such wimps in this country but we have been dreadfully spoiled by the gulf stream.

I won't be around for blogging next week but I will be back the weekend after.

The Bird Gardener - This is a companion piece to "Nurturing" which I posted on Jan 14.

Tigger And Bird Friend - pen an ink

These lovely images below are by UK painter/printmaker Moyra Byford. I love their spontaneity. Moyra produces her work using oils and watercolours and is also trained in restoration. You can find her website here to see more of her work.

John's Hens

Moonstruck Hare

I am a great fan of spooky and scary films and I saw an excellent one recently. It is called Silent Hill and is about a woman whose daughter is abducted and she searches for her at Silent Hill. Silent Hill is a deserted eerie town covered in ash from terrible fires but unbeknown to the mother, she has passed through a portal to another dimension of the town. The town seems deserted but every so often a fire siren sounds and dreadful monstrosities appear to chase the woman. The scenery and special effects are very atmospheric and the monsters really unearthly. I won't tell you the rest in case you want to watch it. It is much more than just another scary film. All I will say is don't watch it late at night with the lights out!!! (If you click on the picture it will take you to the Amazon site, and if you want a much better synopsis than my garbled effort then go here.

The three images below are the artwork of talented Russian artist Galina Popova. Her paintings are beautifully contemporary and colourful. I love her humanised cats. You can find more of Galina's work here at Saatchi, here at Artshop7 and here on her own website.

Some more frosty morning shots and some seedheads. We have been threatened with more very cold weather but hopefully the snow won't make another appearance.

This lovely little mini quilt creation came dropping through my letterbox the other day. It is from an exchange I had almost forgotten about but luckily for me the sender hadn't. It is a small landscape and was beautifully created by Ann Kallio. Thanks so much for your craftwork Ann. I will treasure it.

I bought this book at a charity shop recently. I met the author and artist years ago at the Hatfield House Craft Fair where she had a stand demonstrating her work. It was fascinating to watch her producing her calligraphy. Her name is Dorothy Boux and she has produced a number of books with her calligraphic text and illustrations. Each page of the book is beautifully illustrated with delicate watercolours. I have posted the two I particularly like. All the pages contain either poems or pieces of literature or prose from poets and great thinkers. You may need to click on the images to see them more clearly.

Found a couple of lovely greetings cards by the wonderful printmaker Penny Bhadresa the other day. They are from one of my favourite card companies Art Angels. I have posted about Penny's work previously but if you haven't seen her before you can find her work here.

First Snow

Me and You

Lucy Grossmith creates the most magical and delicate scenes. She lives in the Suffolk countryside and lots of her images are inspired by animals, buildings, nature and country pursuits. She is a self taught artist but has held some very high profile jobs in the art world. You can see masses more of her lovely work on her website and read more about her here.

Walk In The Snow

Secret Garden

Autumn Orchard

Frosty Autumn Day