Lambs And Bluebells

We have had a lovely series of Bank Holidays in the UK with still two more to come. The weather has been gorgeous and spring has been well and truly sprung. The countryside is bursting with colour and fragrance and life. My favourite season and with good reason. We also have had all the hype of the royal wedding with interesting screenings on the TV of the previous royal weddings. Diana’s dress looks so fussy and outdated now that fashions have veered away from frills and flounces. We are all agog to see what the new princess to be will wear on Friday.
The pen and ink drawing above I have called The Berry Thief.

Some of the cutest lambs we came across over the weekend. They are so sweet, snuggling up to mum and running frantically from the nasty humans with cameras. I love the middle shot of the one gazing back to see if mum is coming.







I really like these two images by the late painter/printmaker John O’Connor. He was born in England in 1913 and attended the Royal College of Art where his teachers were Eric Ravilious and John Nash. In later years he illustrated for the Golden Cockerel Press. I think his cockerel is amazing and the Suffolk church wood engraving is beautifully detailed. You can find more work by him here at the Chappel Galleries.

Striding Cockerel Wood Engraving



Suffolk Church Wood Engraving



We have had beautiful weather recently and spring has gone wonderfully mad providing us with gorgeous nature scenes like the bluebells below. The first two I photographed today and the bottom one a short while ago. The woods and lanes are full of blue and the fragrance is intoxicating. We are so lucky in England to have 80% of the world’s bluebell population.



 



These great cushions below are by textile artist Maxine Pharoah.
You can more by Maxine on her website here.

Bluebird Cushion



Dancing Chick Cushion




The lovely blossom of the past few weeks are past their best now. Sadly they don’t last long. I took these shots a little while ago when things were at their peak. A gorgeous blue sky behind helps.

The artworks below are a continuation of my Kantha embroidery theme of my last post. They are all by Asian artists and the first three remind me of the illustrative style of Kantha. I particularly like the way they have rendered the trees. The final two show the lovely graphic and colourful quality of Indian art. You can find these and other examples of detailed Indian art on the Indigo Arts Gallery site here.

Punam Kaln – Holy Cow And Mango Tree



Sudha Kumari – Deer In The Forest



Sudha Kumar – Holy Cow



Montu Chitrakar – Kalighat With Fish

Baua Devi – Two Girlfriends

I was very pleased to come across a very talented scraperboard artist the other day. His name is Tom Boulton and he specialises in scraperboard, linocut and mixed media landscapes. I absolutely love his hare scraperboards particularly. They have a wonderful dark and mysterious quality to them although his other work is just as good as you can see for yourself if you visit his website here. He shares the site with his equally talented photographer wife Julia. Just click on an image to start and then go to “next” in the bar at the top to see all the work.

Hare And The Moon


Orchard Moon


Hare On The Run



Hare In The Meadow