Next Blog Post 4 April

I won't be posting to my blog next week because I am playing catch-up with some artwork that I have promised a member of my family. Sounds mysterious but all will be revealed in the coming weeks. By then we should be knee deep in daffodils and tulips and sunshine on our shoulders.

Three Hens And Flowers - ink and digital colour

My Friend The Red Bird - ink with digital colour

The two lovely acrylic paintings below are by British artist David Eustace. His images are of dreamlike and mysterious scenes of the imagination. I find them very compelling. You can find many more images by David on his page at RedRag Gallery here. (If you click on the images twice you can get a nice large image of the artwork.)

Before The Rising Moon

On The Prowl

I am glad the tulip season is here again. These are gorgeous.

I love the texture on this old wet leaf. You may need to enlarge to see it better.

I found some very interesting trees on my walks recently.

It is lovely to watch the rooks busying themselves with their nests at this time of year. We have some quite large rookeries in this area and the noise they make is incredible.

Winter landscape. I do love a ploughed field in winter.

I recently started a small needlepoint but I ended up hating the design and colours I had chosen so it has been relegated to the NM box. NM stands for needlework mistakes and there are quite a few of those in there. I have now decided to try some more cross stitch and perhaps do a sampler. The sampler below I have posted about on my blog before but in the very early days, so I doubt if anyone has seen it. It is to the memory of an ancestress of mine called Eleanor Landless and I picked her because her name is of a similar length to mine and made the sampler more symmetrical. The name Landless is one of the aliases used by the Scottish MacGregor clan when they were prevented from using their own names in the early 1600s. We have hopes that her father was originally a MacGregor and that one day we will be able to wear the MacGregor tartan legally...lol.

These are the only two sampler books that I have left. I had quite a few at one time but when you have a clear out you don't think you are going to need certain books again but usually a year after they have gone - you need them! The moral of this story is never throw anything out just in case. and if you live in a mansion or a library that is not a problem...unfortunately I don't.

Brenda Keyes produces beautiful samplers and you can see lots of them here on her webpage at the Sampler Guild.

This is the evenweave fabric I bought to do my needlework on. You cannot see here but it is very fine and a pale beige colour. Isn't evenweave expensive? This 28cm x 21cm piece cost me £8. I had no idea it would cost me that much. No room for error then.

These are a few trial stitches I did as I haven't used evenweave before and it seems teeny weeny to me. The very small stitches are just one block of the weave and the large yellow ones are over two blocks with two strands of embroidery thread. That didn't cover quite as well as I hoped so I used three strands for the green block. That covers perfectly. The tiny stitches would produce beautiful detail but would probably be very hard on the eyes. Luckily I am shortsighted.

These are a couple of stylised leaf designs I did several years ago but I loved the colours and might decide to do something similar again.

Moy Mackay is a Scottish artist who produces the most amazingly beautiful felted work. I have never seen such a depth of colour in felt. She has a wonderful sense of design too. She uses merino wool tops in her textiles. If you go here to her website you can indulge yourself in lovely fibrey colour. Go down to Gallery on the left hand side links.

Afternoon Tea

Tibetan Blues II

I have always had a soft spot for bird prints and these woodcut prints by Tim Wayne are gorgeous. I visited an exhibition of his work whilst I was in Cornwall and loved his fabulously graphic style..almost edible.

The images below are the artwork of Scotland based artist and illustrator Margaret Walty. I noticed Margaret's work in the 2010 brochure for Spring Fling which is an Open Studios event held every year in Southern Scotland and fell in love with her hares below. She has a wonderfully detailed and brilliantly colourful technique and her subject matter includes botanical, wildlife, landscapes and fantasy artwork. You can find lots of examples of her work on her website here.

Harebells

Jack In The Green

The Gateway