Wednesday, March 17, 2010

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

26 comments:

jamjar said...

Another lovely post, I so enjoy your posts, I feel that we have very similar tastes in art, The artists that you feature are either already known and admired by me or become that through reading your blog. Also a very belated thank you for the Sunshine blog award, I must get round to passing it on soon. Love your photo of the rookery. Joy x

Caroline said...

Oh, I was so disappointed when this post came to an end!!! I was thoroughly enjoying all the goodies you'd found for us this week - thank you, Cathy. It was lovely to see some of your stitching too - so colourful! As are those fantastic felted works. Love the birds and the hares - favourite subjects of mine as well! I'll be checking out those the websites when I find the time. Looking forward to seeing something of your current project.

tammykingdon said...

Wow Cathy, you must have the patience of a saint to complete that sampler -well done! I'm intrigued as to what artwork is pending for your family; how exciting!

A bird in the hand said...

Mmmmm, lovely embroidery thread. Love your hens, too.

Here's hoping you ARE knee-deep in daffodils next week. I doubt we will be.....

Anonymous said...

Hi Cathy, Lovely to see some of your stitching on your blog. I love those leaves, and so much beautiful work in that sampler. Hope you catch up with all your artwork and enjoy the daffodils and tulips. We desperately need rain here!
Deb

Cathy said...

Hi Joy. We both obviously have very good taste in art..haha. I had lots more photos of rookeries, but they seem to have disappeared for the moment. I cannot resist taking pictures of them.

Cathy said...

Hi Caroline. Glad you like the post. I am definitely in the mood for some stitching now. We have had some lovely sunshine and rain now so everything is set for a lovely spring.

Cathy said...

Hi Tammy. I will let you know when it is complete. I was very pleased how the sampler turned out because I used some of my own designs in it. It did take forever though - particularly the border.

Cathy said...

Sorry to hear that Colette but your weather must be a bit harsher than ours, and your spring later. I love everything to do with fabric and threads and cannot resist buying all the colours in a range...naughty I know.

Cathy said...

I hope you get some rain soon Deb. We will have to send you some of ours. I think we may need some more here in the summer anyway, because we have been told to expect a very hot summer.

I enjoyed working out the colours for those leaves and would like to try some more when I have a minute or two.

ArtPropelled said...

Cathy, your needlepoint is beautiful and the story about Eleanor Landless is really intriguing. Love the colours you've used in the leaf piece too.

jeannine davidoff said...

Hi Cathy i really love coming to your blog. i always come away wanting to delve into my art supplies, thanks for that. as promised, i have posted these for you, and of course everyone else, knowing that you will really appreciate them. http://jeanninedavidoff.blogspot.com/2010/03/ficus-tree.html
take care
Jeannine

BeadBag said...

- lovely posts. Love to see the cross-stitch pieces when you're done - I love the neatness of x-stitch and mixing the colours too. ( ....... think I might get my embroidery stuff out!)

Cathy said...

Thanks Robyn. Eleanor's story is fascinating. I wish we could unearth more about her.

Cathy said...

That tree is marvellous Jeannine. It must be a very old one to have developed so much and in such fascinating shapes. Wouldn't it be lovely to have one in the garden?

Cathy said...

I like the way we get inspired from each others pieces Shirley. I don't think I can do very much until I get this artwork finished first but after that I hope to do more stitching. I am really in the mood for stitching at the moment.

Acornmoon said...

I Oooh and Ahhh all the way through your posts. Those hares are stunning!

Crafty Green Poet said...

what a delightful selection as ever - I love your hens, the pink is perfect! Your oak leaves and trees too are wonderful, we don't have big rookeries but we do have big nesting colonies of jackdaws (though I seem to remember that they're called rookeries too, jackdawries certainly doesnt seem right!).

Cathy said...

They certainly are Valerie. She is very talented indeed.

Cathy said...

I didn't know that Jackdaws nested together like rooks Juliet. That is very interesting. I like jackdaws. They congregate around peoples' chimneys around this area and squabble amongst themselves. We very occasionally get one or two taking seeds from the bird tables.

Artist said...

i love the composition of your chicken and the flowers in the back. it all ties together nicely!! great job

Cathy said...

Thanks Artist. I enjoyed designing that one. You cannot see it from the photo but all the feathers are delineated and that took quite a long while to do.

Holly Zemak said...

Glad to hear that you will soon be a enjoying daffodils and tulips! Ours are on the way also. As always a very inspiring post, I do not know much about needlepoint but love to see other peoples process.

Cathy said...

Hi Holly. Our daffs are all out now and beautiful they look too. We are having a bit of a cold and rainy Easter but that is par for the course really.

~ Phyllis ~ said...

I really enjoyed seeing you stitching.
Happy Easter.

Cathy said...

Hi Phyllis. Glad you like the stitching. I am hoping to get some done this week now I have all my commitments out of the way. Happy Easter to you too.