One Pink Goose

Hooked Rug Storytelling

2011-05-07T07:06:00.001-07:00

A slightly different blog post today as The Book has arrived at last. I haven’t mentioned it before on the blog because I was waiting to actually see it in the flesh so to speak.

This is the wonderful book written by my brother’s partner Lesley Mary Close about extremely talented rug maker Heather Ritchie. I have mentioned Heather in a previous post but this is the first time that this book has seen the light of day. It is a beautifully crafted wonder about the life of a Yorkshire rag rug maker and the fascinating history behind her story rugs. It is crammed full of fabulous photos taken by Lesley, and details of her rugs and exactly how she made them and why. It is the story of the life of a Daleswoman illustrated in textiles. It is published by American publishers Schiffer and is quite a solid book. Lesley has slept, ate, dreamed and lived this book for many a long month with countless re-readings and editing and e-transfer backwards and forwards across the pond. We are all immensely proud of her achievement. You will have to excuse my poor photography of the book but it was too large to scan.

Heather has a well deserved international reputation as a teacher and creator of rag rugs. She has travelled the world and taken her rugs and hooks with her. She is busy enough doing that but also has found time to found and run a charity in the Gambia called Rug Aid which teaches blind Gambians to make rag rugs for sale. An almost impossible task is what we all thought when we heard about it, but Heather was determined to try to help these terribly deprived people who have to beg on the streets to survive. You can read all about it on the website here. You can also browse Heather’s own website here.

I was asked last year to draw some simple line artwork for the chapter headings and I produced 17 in total and you can see some of them at the end of the blog post. They might look simple but some of them required blood, sweat and tears from me, especially the architectural ones. If you see any mistakes in them please don’t tell me..haha.

and here is the original photo of Heather holding the lambs.

The rug below is one of my favourites because of the gorgeous colours she has chosen. Purples and greens are great combinations and Heather dyes most of the wool she uses herself to get a huge range of shades.

Here is the photo that inspired the Jackdaw Jeans rug below. I think the jeans are especially good. Heather has the knack of removing extraneous detail to simplify the image.

The rug below is Victory Garden and was created after Heather found a photo of her grandfather on his allotment. I bet quite a few people can remember the old call of “digging for victory” so that extra food could be produced to feed the population during the second world war. My favourite part of this rug are the pigeons and the sense of distance and perspective. You really feel that you have a pigeons’ eye view here. If you enlarge the photo you can see my little drawing at the top.

This is the so-called Reeth Parliament which were a group of elderly men who used to congregate in the village bus shelter to put the world to rights. Heather’s rug shows amazing attention to detail. The chaps are all gone now but this rug remains as a lovely memory.

This rug shows “Percival’s Bus” which was one of the companies serving the dales town of Reeth where Heather lives. When I was drawing my little bus for the front of the chapter I had plenty of references as there are lots of photos on the Internet of vintage buses of this type.

This gorgeous rug is called Guiding Light and shows Heather as a young girl guiding her father through the streets when his eyesight failed.

Heather in The Gambia workshop helping one of the blind rag rug makers. She is a wonderful teacher. You can imagine the patience needed to teach blind people to make rugs.

I love her depiction of Hall Farm where she and her husband lived. The pinky-purple heathery colours are stunning.

Fleet is Heather’s gorgeous border collie. He is full of life and fun and heather has depicted him beautifully in this rug. I love the detail shot of the swirly different shades of green to suggest grass. She has put in so much accurate detail about Fleet that you could recognise him just by the rug.

This page details how Heather finishes off her rugs and sorts out the hanging details.

Back Cover Of Book

Paradise Gardens drawing. I loved doing all the flowers for this one but it took ages to outline the black lines on the computer in order to make them clearer.

Reeth Village Green drawing. This wasn’t too hard as it was basically straight lines – well buildings are aren’t they?

Reeth Parliament drawing. I used an old pair of my dad’s boots, his flat cap and his stick for the reference for this drawing.

Percival’s Bus drawing. Quite a tricky little one with bits borrowed from various bus photos to make a composite.

This is the drawing for Victory Gardens. I loved drawing that cabbage.

The Evacuees drawing. Loved drawing the teddy but the suitcase and the gas mask were tricky.

This is an image I have been working on recently. I found some beautiful tree paintings in a book about the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and tried to produce my own but I don’t think they are comparable. Still, I quite like them. This is my elongated hand again. Coming in quite useful really.

This is the finished version of Blessing The Garden. I have altered quite a few things and made the bird white in order to make it stand out more. I may do a black and white version of this image too as I really like it.

Wedding Fever Over – Back To Drawing

2011-04-29T12:54:00.001-07:00

This is an ink and watercolour painting which I have called Blessing The Garden. I have fiddled a bit with it and I am not entirely happy with it but I will see how it goes. It isn’t finished yet anyway. I do like the combination of yellows and turquoises though.

Pen and Ink Drawing entitled Red Birds In Trees

We have had the most wonderful two weeks filled with Bank Holidays and the Royal Wedding and gorgeous sunny weather. What more could anyone want? Kate looked divine in her dress and William looked very happy. I am sure she will make a perfect princess and later Queen. I, along with the rest of the country’s women I am sure, had a good laugh at some of the outfits displayed at Westminster Abbey. It just goes to show that being rich is not necessarily an arbiter of good taste in clothing. Someone needs to have a discreet whisper in the ears of the very pretty York girls – what was that Beatrice had on her head???

We have had some wonderful geocaching walks around the shires and below are a few of the photos. I fell in love with pretty and ancient Linslade Old Church on the hill in the middle of nowhere. Nearly a thousand years old and thankfully very minimal restoration inside. The countryside is very green at the moment but the lack of rain is a bit worrying. Not a hint of an April shower but I am sure nature will put that right in the coming weeks.

Tree lined country lane at Linslade

River at Old Linslade

Old Linslade Church built in mid-1100’s.

Beauty

and the Beast (Cockchafer Beetle)

I love Manja Scott’s graphic and quirky work. Her blue cat below is such a character and her happy landscape makes you happy just to see those colours. Manja was Croatian born and now lives and works in England. She has worked as a textile designer and you can see that influence in her drawings and paintings. She has a wonderful style, both graphic and illustrative. You can see much more on her website here.

Blue Cat

Happy Landscape

I really like the work of English artist/craftswoman Flo Snook. I first saw her work during a Brighton Open Studios event years ago. Much of her work shows the influence of the sea and the coast and landscapes around Southern England where she lives. Below are her accessories but she also has textile wall art and paintings on show on her website here.

Pin Cushions

Needlecases

Below are some more of the gorgeous spring scenes we found whilst out walking in the countryside. The bluebells are still thriving in these shots.

Kate Lynch’s paintings are beautifully colourful with a deliciously naive narrative quality to them. She works in oil, pastels and willow charcoal. A lot of her work is connected with farming, and the people who work the land. Kate lives on the Somerset Levels and is married to the very talented painter James Lynch whose work I have mentioned previously. Kate has a very informative website here with lots to see.

Pilgrimage With Cockerel

Leaving Home With Doll And Cockerel

Rushing Woman With Cockerel

The artwork below was created by the late great contemporary Maori artist John Bevan Ford. His paintings and sculptures are in museum collections all over the world. He was also a great speaker of Maori culture and heritage. You can find examples of his work all over the Internet but this site here has a nice slideshow of some of his paintings.

The Connection With London

Flight

Ruru In The Pacific Bush

Some Birds To Guide Us

Lambs And Bluebells

2011-04-23T12:36:00.001-07:00

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

Back Again

2011-04-14T07:48:00.001-07:00

It is good to be back to blogging again. Many thanks to the ladies who drew my attention to Live Writer when Blogger let me down. Once I had ironed out a few problems with photo size it wasn’t too difficult to get my head around. The good thing about Live Writer is that you can insert pictures instead of them always appearing at the top of the blog. Very useful if you have missed out a vital picture or worse, deleted one by mistake. I have a bit of an issue with borders round the pictures so if anyone knows how to get rid of the borders on the right and bottom of the photos please let me know. It wouldn't look too bad if it went all the way round.

I have had this painting below as a drawing in my sketchbook for ages but thought it would look sufficiently spring like to produce now. It is actually traced from my hand but elongated in photoshop for more elegance..haha. I do like to find interesting places for birds to nest.

Days Of Sunshine And Of Rain. A quirky little digital piece.
The artwork was inspired by the title I heard on the radio.

We had a wonderful day geocaching at Redbourne this afternoon. The signs of spring were everywhere and very abundant. The church below is quite beautiful, inside and out, with rows of pollarded limes. I have some more photos of the church to share next time. The flowers of spring are really lovely like the forgetmenots below and the gorgeous cherry blossoms. So many flowers and so little time to appreciate them as they don’t really last very long.

Forgetmenots

Cherry Blossom

The beautiful collagraphs below are the work of printmaker Sarah Ross-Thompson who takes the wonderful Dorset countryside as her inspiration. She has lots more like this on her website gallery here and she also explains how to make collagraphs.

Hillside

Wintershill

I used to see a lot of Hannah Swain’s wonderful fairytale etchings at one time but she is not seen as much today. She is the first printmaker I knew who painted their etchings by hand. You can find some more of her work here on the Two Blind Mice site but they are very tiny and not easy to see.

We visited the beautiful ancient market town of Thame a few weeks ago for geocaching purposes. I have photographed a lot of the very old buildings before but I don’t think I have taken photos of this one, probably due to vehicles parked outside. (Owners of beautiful old buildings should never park their vehicles in the vicinity because it ruins visitors photographs..haha).

I spotted these lovely cushions through a shop window…closed alas. I love the graphic plant design.

I first mentioned getting the gorgeous book below in 2010. It was recommended to me by blogging friend Shirley who knew of my interest in Kantha embroidery. It is an absolute wonder of lovely images of Kantha work and is quite huge. I have only dipped in and out so far but will get down to some serious reading soon. I love Kantha because it is in the style of very detailed illustrations but in embroidery. I like the restricted colour palettes too. I have tried a few pieces myself but I am not up to displaying standard yet. More practice needed. In the meantime I can immerse myself in all this wonderous beauty.

I discovered Liz Somerville’s lovely work a while back. Liz is an English artist who graduated with a textile design and now concentrates on printmaking and painting from her Dorset home. She is inspired by Ravilious, Nash and Bawden – also favourites of mine – particularly Bawden. If you visit her website here you can see examples of her landscapes, architecture and seascapes. I love the quite retro colour palette she uses and the flowing lines of her landscapes.

Eggardon Dip

Still Tree – Quiet Hollow

Five Trees 5

White Tree

Problems With Blogger

2011-04-01T10:57:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately I am not able to blog at present due to problems with Blogger itself. It is misbehaving badly and running all the text into the images and ruining everything. Hopefully it will sort itself out or I may have to find a different blogging system. I know a lot of other people have had trouble with Blogger but up until now I have been lucky. Now the gremlins have struck! Bye for now.

Spring In The Rookeries

2011-03-18T09:13:00.001-07:00

How lovely that spring is approaching. So many little buds bursting into leaf. I love the starkness of winter trees but I am always glad when the leaves appear to gentle the scenery. The only downside is that it is difficult to spot birds' nests and I have a bit of a thing about them at the moment. There don't seem to be enough nests around for all those birds..hmm!

Mythic Cat With Fish Friend - another pen and ink drawing. I bet you didn't know that cats could be friends with fish did you? It happens all the time apparently.

This is a pen and ink cockerel with a digital background. If you ever see a bird like this let me know. Definitely one of a kind.

The spring days are gaining warmth and bursting into life now. I found some beautiful pink blossom on the trees in a local churchyard...

and a host of golden daffodils on a private drive - sneaked in to get this one.

During a geocache in the local park we were of great interest to a lone swan approaching for food...

and swimming away when she realised we hadn't any titbits for her.

Ducks on the sunlit lake.

I love the intriguing narrative that Linda Gourley employs in creating her whimsical and quirky artworks. She is adept at etching, collograph and mixed media and uses a variety of techniques including chine colle. You can follow the link here to see more of Linda's work on her website.

Foot Loose And Fancy Free I

Garden Angel

It wouldn't be March without a few rookery photos. These shots are from one of my favourite local spots. I just wish I had a better zoom on my camera so that I could see them more clearly. I am fascinated by these amazingly gregarious black birds and the fights and squabbles they have when it is time to nest and produce the next generation. Apparently they make a habit of stealing bits of each others nests. It is a wonder they ever get built. I watched a group of rooks nesting in some local trees a few years ago and the nests were beautifully completed. There were about six altogether. A week or so later I happened to be there but the nests had completely and totally vanished. It must have been the wrong spot and they had upcycled the nesting material and built elsewhere.

I found this delightful little textile book in a charity shop the other day. It is by Linda Miller who is a very talented textile artist and is well-known in crafting circles. I have met Linda quite a few times at various art and craft locations and she is always more than happy to discuss her embroidery techniques. This book comprehensively details exactly how she goes about creating her machine emboidered pieces and is very easy to understand and follow. Even I could do it, but it would take me a very long time. The textures and colours of the embroideries are wonderful and the designs beautifully whimsical.

Spring Stroll

Gardener

Autumn Leaves

I am still enjoying the fruits of my enormous clear out for re-carpeting a couple of weeks ago. I now have a largish pile of books and other things that I rediscovered. It is almost like getting new books. It is lovely reacquainting myself with them. Two old favourites are the books by pen and ink artist Anthony Mackay. The drawings below are from Journeys Into Bedfordshire but I also have a copy of its companion Journeys Into Hertfordshire. I bought them in the 1980's when I first discovered what a wonderful medium pen and ink was. I think he has also produced another two counties since then.

I can find next to nothing about him on the Internet but he obviously has a great sense of perspective to have accurately drawn so many beautiful buildings without making them look like renderings from an architect's handbook. I love the textures and tones he has produced. I learned a lot about pen and ink from his work in those early days. These drawings are also a valuable documentation of our heritage when buildings and trees disappear rapidly and our villages and towns are changed beyond recognition.

Shelton Church

Crawley Park Cottages

Marston Moretaine Moated Manor

Trees Near Old Warden

Abbey Farmhouse, Salph End, Renhold

Bookplates And Quirky Birds

2011-03-10T12:12:00.001-08:00

Like everyone else I have been glued to the terrible events in Japan and have viewed with horror the unfolding disaster. I am sure everyones' hearts go out to those people who are left to try and get their lives back into some semblance of normality. What is happening to our world? Disaster after disaster.

I have sorted out lots of the items I had to move to get new carpets laid and hopefully everything is back in its place or perhaps an even better place. The dust bunnies have been laid to rest but no doubt they will be back with a vengeance. I never realised quite what a huge family of house spiders we have given accommodation to. I didn't have the heart to move them outside as they may not be able to tolerate our cold nights and to be quite honest I don't mind them too much. As long as they don't have teeth and they keep out of my bed that is. Live and let live is my motto these days.

I haven't done one of my "Woman Who Planted Trees" series for ages but here is number VII. I still have more in the pipeline. I love this combination of colours. I am not sure how many there will be eventually but I really like the concept so much that there are bound to be more to come.

This is a detail of my latest pen and ink artwork. The bird and flowers are coloured digitally. I did paint the original flowers green but they didn't look quite right.

Journey With A Golden Bird Here is the full version

I have been busy making some more of my greetings cards. I use the spray mount cans now instead of the messy pritt stick. So much cleaner and lovely to be able to reposition the image before it dries. You have to be careful not to inhale the fumes though. There is always a drawback isn't there?

The beautifully detailed etchings below are the work of Bulgarian printmaker Plamena Doycheva. You can find more of her work here at artelista.com

Still Life With Pears

Spring

Below are some of the photos I managed to get a couple of weeks ago when we visited friends in Oxford. I dodged the showers to get these Abingdon shots. The town dates back to the 600's although there is evidence for iron age people in the area. Below is the ancient gatehouse attached to the church. I photographed some fascinating gargoyles here but the little devils decided not to allow me to focus properly on them...typical.

I loved this little side room on the tower of St. Nicholas's church. I wonder what its use was? This lovely building dates from 1170. I wish we had been able to go inside but there was some sort of music practice going on.

This is a view of an intriguing stairway into this old building.

I took a number of photos of these interesting ruins which I supposed to be the remains of the original abbey dating from Saxon times. Imagine my disappointment when I read on the Internet that they were created in 1920 and are considered to be Abingdon's Folly. Still, they are extremely well done and are believed to contain some of the original stones.

Some of you may remember quite a while back I featured an amazing embroidery artist called Nancy Nicholson. I discovered an article about her and her work on a now defunct Craft magazine. Nancy got in touch and said that she was going to create a website for her work and would let me know when it was up and running. She got back in touch recently and gave me the address of the website and also her new blog which is very interesting. Nancy's website is here and is absolutely gorgeous. Don't forget to go to the Gallery to see her lovely collaged birds and her textiles and screenprints. Make yourselves a coffee and go and have a browse. You will be delighted. Below are some of her interactive stationery artworks. Her sense of design and colour is gorgeous and contemporary. Her embroideries are stunning too. Anyway see for yourself. She is also the daughter of well-known embroideress Joan Nicholson who some of you may remember.

I have had this lovely book in my possession for some time but it reappeared when I was clearing out for new carpets. Amazing what you can find when you are not expecting it. It is A Treasury Of Bookplates selected by Fridolf Johnson. It covers the Renaissance to the present. I didn't realise that bookplates were around as early as that. I assumed they were a relatively recent introduction i.e. early 19th century. I suppose that people have wanted to lay claim to their books for as long as books have been around. I expect the old problem of borrowing a book from someone and forgetting who it belonged to is as old as the hills. Lots of famous artists and printmakers produced bookplates for their clients. The collecting of them is alive and thriving. In fact they are often commissioned from an artist and never actually used in books but swapped with other collectors. Below are seven of my favourites from the book (which is a Dover publication by the way). I particularly like the graphic woodcut or engraved design.

Reynolds Stone

Gerard Gaudaen

Pam G Rueter

Mark Severiin

Henry Ospovat

Rockwell Kent

Nico Bulder

Next Blog Post 13 March

2011-02-25T10:30:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful day out on Sunday with good friends H, K and A in Oxfordshire. They entertained us beautifully but didn't arrange the weather very well and we all got an unbelievable drenching. On our way home from a geocache walk we had our backs to the wind and the rain and it felt as if someone had sneaked up behind us and thrown buckets of water at us. Where were my waterproof trousers? In the car of course. I remained quite chilled until I had a piping hot bath hours later. Where is all this rain coming from? Don't answer that.

This is the detail of my latest drypoint etching - Friendship And Understanding. I enjoy depicting my idea of the relationship and interaction of people and birds. I am wondering about painting the leaves with watercolour but leaving the rest unpainted.

Complete etching

I have only got as far as a pen and ink drawing at the moment but this is destined to be a painting eventually.

The usual quandary here - is it a hare or a rabbit? A soapstone lagomorph anyway. That will cover them both. I found it in a charity shop and it took a shine to me and asked if it could come home with me. Of course I agreed.

Meet Smudge - she is the softest, silkiest and nicest natured cat you could ever meet, and I have met a lot of cats. Sadly she doesn't belong to us but to some (very nice) neighbours who adore her. I also love her for her potential as a photographic model and her extremely low fees. The only problem with photographing her is that as soon as you squat down to take a shot she walks up to you for a cuddle. Still, you cannot have everything.

On a recent walk we discovered this interesting beast. It is a poor photo due to the deer being perched up high and the sky very bright in comparison but you can see that it only has half its antler rack. The corresponding half is on the deer on the other side of the gateway. I think it is a uni-antlered deer. I quite like it - quirky.

No one could call contemporary Scottish artist Margaretanne Bennett's work "pretty". Her paintings are a combination of realism and abstract with a definite hint of darkness to them. She uses a subtle palette with lots of texture. On her "about" page on her website she talks about being inspired after a visit to France and seeing old cemeteries. She is obviously fascinated by decay and rust and the sense of sadness and abandonment connected to such places - very similar to someone else I know. Anyway, pop over to her website here and have a look. I absolutely love everything about the painting beneath including the scrappy, almost grafitti-like, bits of text.

Harbinger

Wraiths

Well, we are into March now and we have had the full gamut of weather as usual.

Some frosts...

some sunshine...

some mists...

and a whole shed full of rain.

In the fields we have seen beasts gathered in brotherhood...

some familiar ones staring with beady eyes

and some not so familiar but with beady eyes and beady beaks. (I didn't venture too close) PS I know this is in twice but I like it)

Who could resist tea time in the country with these gorgeous jugs by Stacey Manser-Knight. Lots of lovely colour and detail. Stacey was born in America but has lived most of her adult life in Brighton and has participated in the Brighton Festival Artist Open Studios event in May. She mentions being at the Dragonfly House which hosts participating artists' work and is somewhere I visited myself. They are famous for the wonderful displays of art they exhibit and the intriguing dragonfly on the outside wall of the building. I exhibited my work during the festival for two years running quite a long time ago now in the home of my nephew and his wife. It was great fun but even more than that I enjoyed visiting all the other artists studios and having a good nose around. I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Brighton during the spring. You can see more of Stacey's work here on her website and here at The Castle Gallery.

I first came across Rita Kearton's lovely work when I saw her exhibiting at the Art In Action event at Waterperry several years ago. She was in the printmakers' marquee. I was very drawn to her use of figurative folkloric and naive style imagery. She creates collagraphs and drypoint etchings and they draw you into her imaginary world very easily. You can find Rita's website here for more delicious artwork.

Songbird

The King

Sleeping Dog

The Man And The Woman

When The Music's Not Forgotten

2011-02-17T09:59:00.001-08:00

I am feeling sad and deflated just now which is one reason why my blog is so late. A friend who was treated for lung cancer a few years ago and declared "cured", who lost her husband last year, has now developed liver and pancreatic cancer and has been given months to live. It makes you wonder why life throws so many terrible things at some people and others seem to get away relatively lightly. So here is a song for Doris and all those others who haven't got as long here as they would like.

This is a pen and ink and watercolour drawing I started several months ago and I really couldn't get on with it at all. It all came together this week. Strange to see trees in a boat I know but nothing is impossible.

This is called The Journey Was Long But She Was Never Alone

These are quirky birds from my scrapbook pages which have worked their way into a pen and ink drawing. I think I have the birds the wrong way round though. The red one would have looked better against the black tree.

Although we get some very dull and wet days in winter, there are some days when the light is beautiful. Some of the photos below are recent and others aren't but they are all favourites of mine.

This is a scene taken from one of our walks recently and immediately made me think of the GK Chesterton poem - The Rolling English Road. The first verse goes like this:

Before the Romans came to Rye or out to Severn strode,

The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.

A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,

And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;

A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread

The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

There are another three verses which you can find on Google.

Just when I thought I was finished with hares for the time being - up they pop again.

Jane Ray artwork - published by Roger La Borde. This is the back and front of the card. It is nice to see the full image spread out. Twice as much card for your money.

Andrew Waddington - Return Of The Sun King - published by Art Angels in their Printmakers collection.

My family brought me back a lovely collection of artists cards from Cornwall some time ago and in amongst them was this delightful painting of a goose by Suzy Sharpe. Isn't it beautifully spontaneous and fresh. More of Suzy's work here.

I saw a piece of craft created by Jan Guest in a well-known magazine recently and was extremely impressed with her work. Jan is based in Bosham and uses reclaimed coastal wood and sea pebbles to create her lovely marine themed plaques, wall hangings and free standing pieces. Her fish and little coastal houses are lovely and make me hum "I do want to be beside the seaside". You can catch up with her website here.

Rock Pool Wreath With Fish

Harbour Cottages

A Swell Day

I love the delicate, lacelike tracery of these winter trees at Harefield, but you have to remember to look up because sometimes the magic is above your head.

Mary Fedden has long been a favourite of mine and I was delighted to find this little book at a car boot sale back in the summer. Seems a long time ago, now doesn't it? It only cost around 50p and I couldn't resist it. Nowadays her paintings cost thousands to buy. Mary is a very well known and popular English contemporary artist in the naive, expressionist tradition. She doesn't observe the rules of perspective but paints what she likes, when she likes and doesn't pay regard to the opinions of others. I like that. I also like all the lovely birds she paints and the texture she gets into her work. You can find lots of her work if you enter her name into a search engine.

Oystercatcher

Chaffinches

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Park Birds In The Snow

February Fox

2011-02-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

We have noticed quite a lot of detritus in fields and hedgerows from the very popular Chinese Floating Lanterns recently. They are becoming de rigeur for smart weddings and other celebrations and I must admit they do look lovely en masse but farmers are worried about them being ingested by livestock. This has happened apparently. Coastguards are complaining that they are being mistaken for distress flares at sea. There is no doubt that the end result of them is rubbish in the countryside. Not as bad as the epidemic of plastic bags in trees but definitely on the increase. There are calls to ban them. I am not sure what sort of hazard they represent regarding fires during hot, dry summers. Can't we go back to setting free white doves? A much greener option.

This is a pen and ink and watercolour drawing called "When The Sun Rises". He looks cosy in his den doesn't he?

My brother discovered a lovely bird's nest when we were out and about recently. I love birds nests and this was a beauty because it was low enough to photograph. The majority that I find are too high up to see properly. Below is my pen and ink drawing which is very loosely based on the nest but in actual fact doesn't really look anything like it. I think I need to darken some areas a bit more. I don't like to fiddle too much though as it can be counterproductive and pen and ink is very unforgiving of mistakes.

Tony Angell is an author, sculptor and artist of huge talent. His work is peppered with black birds amongst other animals and birds. His sculpted ravens below are magnificient. Tony is an American artist and craftsman who lives with his family in Seattle. He has a website here and is represented by Foster/White Gallery here and Gerald Peters Gallery here (3 pages). Well worth visiting.

Emmisaries

Tony Angell - In The Company Of Crows And Ravens

This is something you don't see everyday in England. It is one of the residents of a local ostrich farm, presumably being bred for meat. Sorry the neck is a bit truncated but they were behind a fence and with so much head turning and bobbing about (it not me) it was difficult to get a focused shot without wire in it. The beaks look quite vicious so we were glad to be on our side of the fence.

Not really a seedhead as such. More of a dried up collection of leaves but this one is a bit of a mystery to us. I was attracted to the symmetry.

A couple of shots of some mallard we saw on the pond on the Harefield village green. The light was really nice here. Sometimes the light on a seemingly grey day is better than a sunny one. That doesn't sound logical I know.

My local gallery had a new exhibition of mythic art starting a few days ago and I made a point of visiting as I love the participating artists. There were hares and goddesses and badgers aplenty.

Wendy Andrew is a painter of wonderful mystical art, myths and legends. She has the ability to blend brilliant colours together seamlessley to produce her very popular art. Her work is full of detail and interest. Seeing the artwork in the flesh so to speak, the colours are so vivid and vibrant. I love her depiction of the badger below. You can find masses of Wendy's work on her website here.

Wendy Andrew - Calling Badger

Wendy Andrew - Autumn Equinox

Julie Eaton is a St. Ives based illustrator who weaves a beautiful story with her work. You can find her website here with lots more lovely art.

Julie Eaton - Persephone

Julie Eaton - Autumn Night

Hannah Willow makes wonderful, folklore and myth inspired jewellery in Wiltshire. I really loved browsing her beautiful hares and trees and I wanted to take everything in the gallery home with me. She is also a wonderful artist and you can see some of her paintings here on her website as well as her jewellery.

We made a visit to Harefield the other day and I had to take some photos of the hare sculpture on the village green. It is quite an imposing structure which shows a running hare in a globe and has map depictions of the UK and Australia to celebrate the links between the two countries cemented during the war when an Australian military hospital was set up to treat wounded soldiers.

The beautiful illustrations below are the work of illustrator Robin Bell Corfield. They are illustrating A Shropshire Lad book of poetry by AE Housman. I have another copy of A Shropshire Lad which has been illustrated in a completely different way by Agnes Miller Parker. You can see the post here. Robin Bell Corfield's artwork is beautifully spontaneous and fresh and shows the English countryside as it was and as we all hope it would be again. I love Housman's poetry although it is of a completely different era. Many find it too full of doom and despondency but I love the lyrical nature of it.

A Tiny Gallery And Some Great TV

2011-02-04T10:16:00.000-08:00

There is some good news on the TV front at the moment - Time Team is back for another series. I have been watching this programme for 18 years and I love it still. Tony is definitely even more rotund and irritating but even he doesn't mar the great archaeology. Is there anyone in the country not watching My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding series? Compulsive and fascinating. I couldn't believe the girl who wore the wedding dress with the multiple battery packs and lights and which weighed 20 stone. Lastly a bit of spook in Marchlands. This series covers three time lines but is very well acted. No artwork next week then. I will be too busy watching the box...only joking!

This is a digital piece called Black Bird In A Bright Garden

This is an ink and watercolour I call "The Shieling". Those little coloured dashes took forever but I like the effect. It is a bit like running stitch embroidery.

I visited a tiny little art and craft shop last week in the market town of Wendover. The shop was so tiny the three of us in there were almost a crowd but it was filled with delightful crafty goodness. I was amazed when the friendly owner Kate told me that she had made everything herself. There is such a variety and all very reasonably priced. If you click on the two photos you can see everything in more detail. Kate's friend Mary also showed us some of her exquisite textile work. I spent quite a while in there chatting to these two delightful and very talented ladies and will definitely return soon.

I had only taken a small amount of cash with me so I wasn't able to purchase much but I did get the lovely hare card, an exquisite map heart and a tiny vintage Oxo tin. You can find Kate's website here so pop over and pay her a visit.

Two mysterious secret pools I discovered whilst out walking. I hope to incorporate the first one in a pen and ink drawing.

For all lovers of mid-century textile design the name of Jacqueline Groag will be quite familiar. She was a Jewish emigre to Britain from Czechoslovakia at the time of WWII. She had previously lived and worked in Vienna with her architect husband. She produced some amazing and iconic designs for the next forty years. This lovely big book is full of her intricate and illustrative design style for furnishing and clothing fabrics. I have read it cover to cover but will definitely read it again.

I discovered a wonderful field full of old and gently decaying sunflowers recently. I find it quite fascinating to see the degradation that time, weather and the birds have wrought on their previous beauty. Very few of the flower heads have any seeds left which means they have provided sustenance for our feathered friends during the cold winter that we have had.

and here are some plant heads put into PS filters. You may have to click to enlarge to see the detail properly.

I know where I will be going if I am lucky enough to come into some money. Helen Shere's silver jewellery is quite exquisite and she has a really delightful Etsy shop here. Helen graduated in 2004 with a design degree and she now lives and works in Nottingham. Her work is very illustrative in nature and she is inspired by whimsical birds and animals and nature generally. If you go to her website here you can see her different collections at the top.

Bird In The Garden Rings

Dunnock Brooch

Bird On The Tree

The beautiful etchings below are the work of American artist Francis Kelly. He was born in Minnesota and studied art in various locations before coming to the UK to settle and work. He has studied and carried out painting conservation and restoration work and is the author of several books. His work has been shown at many galleries and museums. He has produced a wide variety of art including etchings and paintings of coastal scenes, landscapes, nudes, floral and his poster series. I definitely love his stunning landscape etchings of all his work though. You can see lots of his art on his very comprehensive website here.

Willows

Field Gate

Old Oak

Country Lane

Animal Antics And Interesting Art And Craft

2011-01-28T06:25:00.000-08:00

I have had a very busy week this week and therefore haven't achieved as much as I would have liked. I start the week with grand plans and 80% of them come to nothing. At the end of the week I am quite glad to have achieved 20%. How our goals change when the circumstances alter.

This is a delicate little pen and ink called Birds In A Strange Garden... and here is a detail from it

Some of you may remember me starting this scraperboard of Abby back in July here. I haven't made as much progress as I would have liked, but I am almost afraid to touch it for fear of ruining hours of work. I must get it finished though. It is a slow, painstaking process but I am sure I will get her finished...one day.

I thought I would include this photo although it is not good due to the distance but we thought it was very amusing to see these horses all with their backs to the hedge as if they are getting ready to start a race. I do have another photo where another horse joins them in the same position. I suppose they must have had some protection from the biting wind.

Below is the work of English artist/printmaker Angela Harding. Her work is immensely popular and I have several greetings cards with her images on. Needless to say I don't send them to anyone. Angela is from the Midlands and is inspired by nature, flora and fauna. Birds are a recurring theme in her work and very beautifully stylised - always the best way. There is lots to see of Angela's work on her website here and also on the Serena Hall Gallery site here.

Black Bird And Berry Print

Hare, Field And Stream

There is a local community book area near to where I live. People bring in books and magazines and volunteers sort them and shelve them and keep things tidy. It is actually housed in a covered yard area but gates are shut at night to prevent vandalism. The books and mags are dirt cheap but you can pick up some great old books sometimes. I found this early copy of Far From The Madding Crowd and was really taken by the cover. It only cost me 50p but I think it was worth it for this lovely Lola Fielding illustration. It looks like woodcut or maybe scraperboard as a lot of book illustrations are done on this medium. Anyway I have tidied it up a bit in Photoshop to take out most of the crease lines and I am quite pleased with the result.

Here are a few of the hundreds of sheep photos I have taken over the past few months. I cannot resist photographing sheep. There is just something about them that fascinates me.

Below is a rather handsome Jacob I saw recently. A spot of sunshine works wonders.

This poor little lady looks like she has been involved in an explosion in a poo factory. I think this is the sort of fleece you get if you stand too close to a tractor revving in a very muddy field...hmm.

This one is brave to stare. Mostly they turn and run when they see me approaching. I have more photos of sheeps' bottoms than anyone else in the country.

These gorgeous and cleverly detailed whimsical creatures are the creations of American jeweller and artist Robin Wade. She believes in recycling and repurposing as much as possible and uses silver, typewriter keys, buttons and all sorts to create her angels. I love their names and the titles she gives her pieces. You can find Robin's little angels, and other pieces, in her Etsy shop here and also on her website here, where she also displays her exquisitely painted little faces. A very talented lady.

This was the scene I thought would make a lovely photo on our geocache walk last week....

but who are these two and what on earth are they up to? Well we thought a cache might be hidden inside the footpath sign (they sometimes are), but the only way to get to it was double human height. Luckily no one happened to pass at the time or they may have been a bit of explaining to do. I didn't offer to look as I am not good with heights...haha and no, it was hidden in a totally different place.

My eye was caught by these amazing patterns on the inside of bark and I had to stop for a photo. At first glance they looked a bit like tooled leather but on closer inspection they turned out to be the damage created by the elm bark beetles and the fungus spread by them which wrecked such havoc on British trees from the 1960's onwards. The sad thing is that this damage is recent. The elm bark beetle is still here and still destroying elm trees. When the trees reach a certain height they fall prey to the fungus spread by the beetles. There is lots of elm in the hedgerows of the countryside and it remains as long as it doesn't grow into a tree.

Natalia Moroz is a wonderful printmaker with a well deserved international reputation. She has a fantastic sense of graphic style, line and colour. She studied graphic design and illustration in Uzbekistan but now resides in the USA. She has a lovely website here with a huge number of very varied artworks. She is married to another artist who also creates jewellery and has a young son who is a very competent linocut artist, so there are three websites in one to browse. You can find her Flickr site here and her Etsy shop here where she sells her and her son's prints and her husband's jewellery. What a creative family.

Along The Bridges And Canals

Winter Branches

Bird Catching

Eve

Scent Of Lilac

Umbellifer Tree And Rusty Barbed Wire

2011-01-21T11:20:00.001-08:00

We had a wonderful geocaching walk on Sunday, literally uphill and down dale again. One path was muddy, slippery and as near vertical as anything. I almost needed oxygen at the top but coming down would have been much worse. I took lots of beautiful pictures including the dinkiest empty bird's nest my brother discovered. I have been bemoaning the fact that all the nests are high up and difficult to photograph but this one was hidden in the middle of a tree and was quite low. I have a fascination for birds' nests. I just think their construction is totally amazing and if I could find more I would have lots of photos of them to show you. As it is there is just this one so I will show you it next week. I think I can feel a bird's nest drawing coming on....!

This is a lovely song by the multi-talented Moya Brennan -Tell Me Now What You See

I knew all my multitude of umbellifer photos would come in useful as reference material. This is a very colourful version but it was fun to draw. This is a pen and ink drawing which has been digitally coloured. It is called The Farmer's Wife and she is wearing a paper hat which is my latest "thing".

You can see the paper hat in more detail here.

This little quirky drawing is called Protection.

SAVE OUR FORESTS

It recently came to the country's notice that the Government is planning on doing nasty things to our heritage behind our backs. They are planning to sell off our forests to the highest bidders. Once they have gone they will never return. We all need to help stop this from happening by signing this online petition asap. You can go here to sign: Save Our Forests Petition

Has anyone bought the new Making magazine? It has only recently started and although I have missed a couple of issues I will get it regularly from now on. It is about making crafty/arty things and the features are of a really good standard with excellent and interesting photography. They have interviews with crafters like Kaffe Fassett etc, and a Lust List of items we would all like to own. Worth having a browse when you are next in Smiths.

I am sure I am not the only one who loves old tangled, rusty barbed wire on bleached wooden fence posts. I find the textures of the old wood and the colours of the rusty wire irresistible. I must admit I have a small but growing collection of such things. It has to be rusty. New wire is not interesting in the least. It is the altered and decaying aspect of it that I am interested in. Nutty I know!

If you admire unique jewellery you will love Sara Lloyd-Morris's work. She has wonderful hares and other themed jewellery. I absolutely adore this seaweed necklace with a beautiful starfish tucked into it. Sara lives and works in Wales and has been a jeweller for very many years. She has a great website here. If you look under the jewellery themes you will find the hares.

I found a lovely churchyard angel on a walk recently. I suppose technically she isn't an angel because she is wingless but she looks like one to me anyway. It never ceases to amaze me that such beautiful sculptures reside in our churchyards. This young girl's face is so sad and poignant it makes you wonder who was the model and if she had lost someone dear to her or whether the sculptor just used his imagination. I am using the photo below on my desktop at the moment.

I think this mixed media piece by Rachel Ricketts is really sweet. It is called Fraser 3. You can see more of her sculptural work here at FountainFineArt. If you click on the archive at the bottom of the page it will take you to some past work.

This is one of the nicest chicken linocuts I have seen. It is called Sophie's Chickens and is by the artist/printmaker Jenny Crocker.

Jiri Borsky was born in Czechoslovakia and then studied in Prague. He eventually emigrated to England and now works full time as an artist and exhibits widely. He has been inspired by European medieval painters and his work definitely has a reminiscent stylised look. I love the amazing texture he employs in his work. He has a very comprehensive website here with lots to browse.

Fruit Picking

Modern Art Lovers

Harbour Lovers

Winter

Hair Wash

Back to Drypoint Etching

2011-01-12T10:26:00.000-08:00

Is anyone else amazed that we are halfway through January already? Scary!

I haven't done a collage for ages and I had two cute pen and ink birds that did not like the background I put them into one little bit. I decided to cut them out and give them one more suited to their quirkiness. I think they much prefer being on this boat and sailing off into the sunset together.

If you cannot read the text the top one says: from quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends. The banner on the boat reads: the wing of friendship never moults a feather.

I decided to pull the wraps off my etching press at long last and produce some drypoints. It is a very addictive process with some good and some not so good results. I have the same problems with inking that I have with linocuts. The actual etching is easy by comparison. The bird carrying heart is on copper and the others are on perspex. A lot of people don't like hand coloured drypoints but I really like the effect. I have lots of ideas for new drypoints so there are more to come.

The Sun At My Back Drypoint

Bird Carrying Heart drypoint etching

White Goose Etching

I found an interesting site on the internet dated from 2009 about printmaking at the Sidney Nolan Trust. A group of artists got together with the public and made some huge prints which they printed using a steamroller. You can see the gallery photos here. Below is a wonderful print by Pam Whitehead, one of the participating artists, in which she repeats the block - absolutely gorgeous work. This would be a real talking point given prime position in someone's sitting room.

Pam Whitehead - Birds In Motion

These lovely illustrative bird ceramics are by artist Emily Jones. I love her whimsical depictions and the colours she uses. You can see other work by Emily on her website here. Apparently many years ago she used to be the "Nimble" girl in the adverts about Nimble bread. I remember those...!

We had a wonderful geocaching walk last weekend. The weather was very cold but the skies brilliantly clear. Great weather for photography. The set of photos below shows our walk as we progressed through the day to the semi darkness when we completed it. It was extremely tiring as all hills and dales, the hills being higher than the dales were deep for some strange reason. No I cannot understand it either. The last photo shows the muddy fields post snow and rain. No we didn't go through those particular fields but we did manage to find ones equally claggy. My poor boots will never recover. Plenty of sheep around but none in distress this time I am relieved to say.

I found a wonderful book on Art Quilts during one of my London forays in the old year. It is compliled by Lark Books and is crammed full of the most amazing pictorial quilts. Every one of them is award worthy but the four below are among my uber favourites. The art of the quilt maker is akin to painting with fabric and often with as much detail. The only thing that would be better would be to see them in person to appreciate the textures and the stitching - gorgeous.

Gabrielle Paquin - Scarlet Ibis Quilt

Jan Swearington - The Sea Dream Quilt

Betty Busby - Silverlight

Nancy B Dickey - Windswept

I love Michael Kidd's painting for several reasons; they are exquisitely designed and detailed, they have a lovely, fresh and modern appearance and they are intensely colourful. He uses realism but with a big chunk of stylisation and it gives the appearance that the places are not quite of this world. They are too perfect to be on planet Earth. I really enjoy that effect. Michael is a British artist who was born in London and studied in the late 60s. He has turned his hand to many things but came back to painting in the early 80s. You can find more of his intriguing work on his website here and also more if you enter his name into a search engine.

Chateau Latour, Bordeaux

Garden Of Silly Hats

Autumn, Chateau Pichon

White Garden, Sissinghurst

Sketchbook Project Completed (At Last)

2011-01-06T11:48:00.001-08:00

Sorry about the length of this post but I was too busy to blog last week so this is a bit of a combination. We have emerged from our Christmas snow now but I think we may still get some more before the end of winter. I cannot believe we have reached the second decade of 2000. Where has the past ten years gone? It passed in the blink of an eye. Anyway I hope you all had a great Christmas and are brimming over with creativity and inspiration for 2011.

I have not had a lot of time for art recently but I did manage to do the image below in ink and watercolour. I will probably do another version as I am not too pleased with how the trees have turned out.

Finally, after months of drawing I have completed my moleskine for the Sketchbook Project. Below is the painted front cover just waiting for the title and my name to be put in and then I can post it off to Brooklyn. My theme was "If you lived here" and while some of my drawings have only been loosely related to this, I have enjoyed them all. I am glad to have finished it though as it has taken a huge amount of my time. I have completed thirty four in all. A lot of my "sketches" are actually quite detailed because I don't do sketches. For anyone who hasn't finished their books yet, I have read on the website that you should post them off by the 15th of this month anyway.

On Boxing Day we decided to do a bit of snowbound geocache maintaining our own caches. Once you have placed those little treasures you have to make sure they remain in good condition where they are supposed to be and there are log books for people to write their names in. On our return journey in the late afternoon we were alerted to a sheep in distress by a rather pathetic bleating. The photo below shows what we discovered.

A youngster with her (his) head firmly fixed in a very small section of wire fencing. Goodness knows what she was doing but then she was a sheep so probably enough said. She was a very friendly sheep who seemed to sense we were trying to help so she remained quiescent throughout the tricky operation. I was on this side of the fence holding her head still while the other two unwound the wire with a pair of tweezers. Not an easy thing to do either.

It took a good 10 minutes to achieve but finally she was free.

A brief check over to see if she was wounded. Luckily she had only snagged her ear tag and caused a bit of bleeding; otherwise she was in good fettle.

Off to freedom...

Here are a couple of shots of her colleagues who ignored her cries for help and carried on feeding.

She needs to choose her grazing companions more carefully in future and we need to remember to take wire cutters with us on our next walk.

I am a huge fan (along with everyone else) of Orla Kiely. She strikes me as always having her finger on the up to the minute design pulse. Her new book Pattern is a delight. Full of gorgeous images of her creations and lots of information about how she started out and how she gains inspiration for her work. I bought this book way back in October but have been saving it to savour when I had more time i.e. after I finished my sketchbook. That time is now and I am really enjoying it.

Mary Tempest is a artist with a wonderful sense of colour. All her paintings are full of vivid colour and life and contemporary style and if you need cheering up, a visit to her website here will definitely fit the bill.

Untitled

Adam And Eve

The Kiss

A few photos from my recent folders. Mist is very atmospheric and really creates interesting photos. The three landscapes were all taken locally and below is a wonderful concoction of red berries and some dewy webs. I take much longer to walk anywhere when there are views like these to appreciate.

Berries and Webs

Pink Sky

Misty Woodland

Misty Morning Sunlight

Howard Phipps is an English artist who very well known for producing exquisite wood engravings. He draws the landscapes of Wiltshire and Dorset and produces amazing black and white artwork which is full of interest and detail. He has also illustrated books and produced his own. I have a book of his wood engravings and it is one of my favourites. You can find lots more images of his work here at the Rowley Gallery and also here at Bircham Gallery. A Google search for his name will turn up more.

Clearbury Ring From Homington Down

Win Green From Berwick Down

Ambling Hare

A Corner Of The Garden

Ox Drove In Winter

Happy Christmas Everyone - Back on 9 January (still trying to complete my sketchbook)

2010-12-16T12:14:00.000-08:00

Well, we are ankle deep in snow if not knee deep...yet. We are being threatened with a lot more snow though and extremely cold temperatures. The temperature locally was -19.6C last night and that is very cold for the south-east of England. The country has drawn to full stop of course; what else would we expect. We don't do extremes of weather here. There may even be some left for Christmas Day which would be amazing.

This is my last blog post until the New Year as I am getting very behind with my Sketchbook Project and have just had an email to say that they have to have a posting date of 15 January and that is not that far away now. I don't want to miss the boat after all my hard work.

I enjoyed drawing this. I used an old image of my lovely cat Tiggy who is sadly no longer with us, but I changed his white bits around. The tree is quirky and a last minute addition but I like it. It looked a bit bare and needed an extra something and there is always a tree to fit in my world.

This is UFO from way back. It wasn't working and I decided to leave it for a few months and then reconsider it. It turned out to be a lot longer than a few months and I am still not convinced by it. I think the boat is too pale and needs more work on it. Still, this is it for now.

The new title is The Hitchhiker

Here is another drawing from my Sketchbook Project book. It is coming along but more slowly than I would like. I quite like this one. It will probably find its way to being a proper drawing eventually.

I love these two Hildegard Van Heerden etchings. I really like her restrained palette and simplified, elegant forms.

Beached

Pillow Talk

Well, the unthinkable has happened again in the UK in these times of global warming. We have had snow. Heavy falls for the second year running. Very unusual, and of course, the country has fallen apart again. Still, it does produce some very pretty photos and a good excuse to post them.

I found this gorgeous piece of vintage Javan batik at the K&SS. It was in a display by Diane and Jim Gaffney connected with natural dyes. It is 70 to 80 years old. It reminded me of a very detailed woodcut drawing, with lovely folky overtones.

Selvedge is one of my favourite magazines. I was missing a few copies but since my last visit to the Knitting and Stitching Show in October, I now have the complete collection. Below is a little taster of them for those who are not familiar. It is basically a textile orientated mag but has articles on many associated topics. Absolutely love it as it has masses of inspiration and interviews with artists and crafters.

I bet teatime is great fun at Mark Dally's house. He produces those gorgeous black and white graphic ceramics. He is a master of the quirky touch too. Go and have a look at his clocks on his website here. They are really lovely. I have come across his work in the past at the wonderful Art In Clay at Hatfield and have always been amazed at his talent. I see in his profile he mentions being inspired by Ridgeways "Homemaker" range. I remember my aunt having that particular range and being intrigued myself by the illustrative quality. In those days they were sold in Woolworth for very little. Nowadays of course, with the great interest in mid-century design, they are quite collectable.

Leggy Stencil Tap Top Teapot

Calligraphy Teapot

The beautiful artwork below is by printmaker Judy Attwood. Judy was born in England but now lives in Greece where she is inspired by the rhythms of the natural world to produce her lovely and detailed etchings. Her swimming duck is my favourite but you can find more of her work on the following sites: PaintingsILove here, ArtSlant here, The Gallery Workshop here and Painters Online here.

Goose

Flower At Dafni

Lemon Tree

Swimming Duck

Christmas Images And A Very Odd Tree

2010-12-08T07:59:00.001-08:00

Well, Christmas is very nearly upon us. I still have my own cards to write out and send but I think everything else is done. I cannot believe that we are nearly into 2011. Where did the past ten years go? I hope all your arrangements and celebrations are going according to plan. I will probably do one more blog post and then rest until the New Year in order to recharge my blogging (or is that flagging) batteries.

This is a digital drawing using a favourite colour combination pink and pale green. Not your typical winter scene but I like it. The basis of it is another drawing in my sketchbook project book that I scanned into photoshop and coloured, although the trees are pen and ink. That sketchbook project is proving very useful in providing me with artwork for my blog.

and this version is for when Christmas is over

This is a quirky digital image that I concocted from another drawing in my sketchbook project. Took a while but I quite like the result.

I had to share this very strange old tree with you. I discovered it whilst out walking recently. The tree appears to be completely dead except for a large bush of leaves growing from two places. I have uploaded one of the leaf bushes but the other one is completely different. I don't really understand how this has come about but then I am no botanist.

This view looks like a tree giant preparing to hurl a ball of leaves and twigs at someone.

Here are another three great Christmas card designs that I found at the weekend. Christmas always brings out some lovely images, with birds being popular themes.

Richard Barrett for Paper Rose

Emma Pack for Avocado Designs. Such a cute Christmas design. I love the birds.

Agnieszka Jatkowska - Dove Over Bethlehem. Another lovely Ling card. Agnieszka has worked as an in house designer for them. You can see more of her lovely work on her website here.

Many years ago I found a beautiful picture without any title or artist name and I pasted into one of my art inspiration scrapbooks. Every time since that I have looked at that image I have wondered who painted it and a little while ago, quite by chance, I found out. I happened to see the book below in a charity shop and thought ha...I will have to get that. It was whilst I was leafing through that I found my blue angel. They say that everything comes to she who waits.

Cecil Collins died in 1989 but he left a wonderful catalogue of visionary and inspirational artwork which has been distributed to many galleries including the Tate in London. His images of archetypes such as angels, sybils and fools are intriguing and I think he had quite a naive, folk style although others would probably disagree. Anyway, I love what he did and I love this book which was published by Judith Collins to celebrate his retrospective at the Tate. There is now another book published which has for the cover the image at the bottom - The Great Happiness. I think I would like that one too...haha.

Cecil Collins Book

Head Of An Angel

The Sleeping Fool

Bird Singing In A Tree

Hymn To Night

The Great Happiness

You can see by the proponderance of images containing those cold, white, spiky things that we have had frost after frost lately. So pretty to photograph but oh my fingers...! I had to put my gloves back on quickly or I swear I would have frostbitten digits. Not a good thing for artists, or anyone come to think of it. Sometimes the hoar frost lasted for several days and gave the trees such a wonderful, otherworldly appearance. I won't mention Narnia again.

These delightfully whimsical creations are the work of American Etsy crafter Laura of Blue Terracotta. Laura lives in France with her family. My eye was taken by these textile bird brooches which she makes from decorator and vintage fabric remnants, but her shop is also full of other lovely mixed media pieces from recycled and found objects, soft sculptures and plushies. Definitely worth visiting. You can find her at her Etsy shop here and also at her website here.

Fabric Bird Brooches

Textile Bird Brooch

Egyptian Fabric Bird Brooches

Floral Linen Owl Pillows

The lovely paintings below are the work of very talented French artist Veronique Avon. She was originally from Provence but now lives in Herefordshire in England. Her very varied work shows a combination of scenes from both places. She has created work in traditional oils and also more whimsical images. You can find lots to look at on her website here. I love the delicately painted angels below. They have a feel about them of the illustrations you would find in medieval books.

Ange Gaucher

Ange Drotier

K & S Show Part Two And Lovely Christmas Cards

2010-12-04T09:56:00.000-08:00

Christmas is drawing ever closer and we have had a reasonable fall of snow already. The temperatures have been bitter (for England anyway). We have had a brief respite over the weekend but further icy weather is forecast. I hope everyone is feeding the birds.

I have always wanted to create a drawing with the title Ship Of Fools, and here it is. It is a pen and ink drawing with a digitally coloured background. Yes, I know it is more like a shallow boat than a ship, but that is artistic licence for you. I rarely draw men and I know they are a bit effeminate looking but they are men. Perhaps I need to square off the jawline a little...!

Ship Of Fools

The latest offering from my sketchbook project. I bet you are wondering how I will weave in the words "if you lived here". I really like this image and I will probably do it as a "proper" drawing soon. It is the last word in quirkiness.

It was a really cold and wet day when I decided to drive over to my favourite local art and craft gallery. They have a great Winter Show which I always enjoy visiting and what better way to take your miind off the inclement weather. I found masses of lovely things I would like to have bought but I contented myself with two lovely painted plaster angels. They have several different styles of dresses and postures but these two appealed to me the most.

You can see in the photo below that I have also recently treated myself to some sweet little Orla Kiely boxes in her divine large and small stem print. John Lewis have a good display of OK goods including diaries, notebooks and wrapping paper as well as different sizes of boxes. You can find some of her boxes here but they are selling out quickly. What to put in two little boxes...that is the question? Don't say presents for people either - these are mine!

I have also fallen in love with white frames recently. This one is the famous Ribba frame from Ikea here and it suits my prints down to the ground because it gives them a lovely fresh look. They don't even need matting.

and here is a closer look of the two little angels. They are so cute.

I was delighted whilst out walking a few weeks ago to come upon a field containing three horses as it was an opportunity to photograph their tails. I have always had a fascination with horses manes and tails and I love to see them swishing. It is a great challenge to try and photograph them and keep them in focus but it doesn't always work. Here are a few pictures of the horses and the back views of the swishy tails. Didn't do too badly did I?

Here is a little look at some of the 2010 Christmas cards I will be sending out this year. Anyone noticed the preponderance of birds? As is my usual habit I keep one card for myself and send the others out.

Sally Elford is a very well-known designer and she created this Dove Of Peace. A strong contender in the favourite Christmas cards stakes. Published by Woodmansterne.

Proud Partridge by Galia Bernstein. This one is beautifully designed and so very pretty. It is also published by Woodmansterne. Galia is a very talented artist who also creates wonderful ceramics. Have a look at her blog here.

This little lovely is a Robert J Reader card by TheArtFile. Not a traditional Christmas colour but definitely stunning. Deer always get my vote.

This lovely graphic design is Partridge by Jack Jones Design and is part of Portfolio's Dada range of cards.

Gorgeous traditional design called Dove by Janet Lawson produced by Ling Design. Ling do some amazing greetings cards.

Below are some photos I took on my recent travels around the district. I love the old decorative gate below. Hmmm...I think it might find its way into my sketchbook project book.

Huge quantities of berries around this year - a sign of a hard winter? We shall see.

Churchyard umbellifers - I liked the pinky out of focus gravestone in the background.

Umbellifers against a stormy sky hosting a busy little spider.

The following are a few general views of the Knitting And Stitching Show. They were taken in the late afternoon when the huge crush of people had died down. Much better time to take photographs. One thing about an otherwise exemplarily run show is the crazy stand numbering system which never fails to confuse everyone. What happened to good old A1, B1 etc.

The retrospective of the late Julia Caprara was marvellous. She was a wonderfully talented fibre artist, embroiderer and teacher. I love the use of bright and beautiful colour in her work; something she was well known for. She was very keen on hand embroidery which gave her work a lovely handmade look. The work below is all hers from the Show.

Highcliff Summer

Suffolk Meadow

Tree Of Life

Renewal - The Voice From The Fire

Detail of Peace Mandala

Detail of Textile Piece Below

Knitting And Stitching Show 2010 Part One

2010-11-25T11:24:00.000-08:00

Finally I am back to blogging. I must first thank everyone who has left comforting words and kind messages about our family's recent loss. Many of you will have guessed that it was my father who passed away. He had become very sick over the final months and was suffering greatly. Mingled with our sense of loss is relief that that suffering is now over and he is at peace. He is hugely missed and has left an enormous hole in our family which is felt very keenly. He was 93 years old. He always wanted to see my latest artwork even though he could barely focus due to macular degeneration. When I am drawing now I often pause and wonder if he is looking over my shoulder. I hope he is and I hope he likes what he sees.

Christmas is fast approaching but I started the 2010 Christmas card design early which is just as well as I ended up doing two. The first one was the sheep drawing below which was rejected in favour of the graphic black hares. Pity as I thought the sheep were really cute. They are for my eldest brother's business Christmas cards which you may remember I do every year. The black hare design is a reworking of an original roundel which I did many years ago but the corn has been replaced by winter umbellifers and snow. Much more seasonal. Which do you prefer?

Well, the sketchbook time is passing quickly and I have a lot more pages to fill in before the sending off date. I had to completely deconstruct the book as the cahier paper was totally unsuitable even for my finest ink nib and as for paint... I rebound it with good quality, thick sketch paper and boy was the resewing fun! However, because I knew I would have difficulty filling so many of the original pages I decided to reduce them by about half. Also being better quality paper the book is probably thicker than the original anyway. I have also cheated a teeny weeny bit by using a lot of two page spreads. Below are two of the first drawings I did. My theme is "if you lived here" and I have interpreted it quite loosley in many cases. What do you think so far?

I fell in love with these wonderful coconut shell buttons at the K&SS this year. They are perfect for crafty projects and can be bought online from The Textile Garden here.

I found some delightful cows to act as models in October.

"Oh I wondered what was digging into me"

"Mmmm...yum - nice hard, dry, crispy twigs to eat"

"Mmm...it tastes even better with the leaves and berries on".

The fabulous Knitting And Stitching Show took place at Alexandra Palace in October. It was as wonderful as always and extremely well attended. I was there for 6 hours and still failed to see everything. I bought a couple of excellent books which I will tell you about in another post. A largish proportion of my time there is spent perusing the extensive book stands where you can leaf through all the latest offerings from the art and craft community. Oh if only I had the money and the space to store them...

Two lovely wall pieces which caught my eye were Jennifer Willis's Looking For The East below

and Elizabeth Brimelow's Machine Stitch Perspectives - a beautiful piece of textile work.

There were lots of well-known brand names exhibiting at the show.

Rowan's gorgeous fabric display was a big draw as always.

I really liked the explosion of colour that was Nel Whatmore's stand. Nel is a very well-known and popular artist and designer from North Yorkshire and has a finger in many creative and artistic pies. You can find more about her beautiful work on her website here and she also has a very colourful blog which you can access from her website.

I was very impressed with the standard of work by the Wessex Textile Artists at the show. Their room was delightfully arranged and very popular with the visitors. Here are three members to illustrate the standard but all the work displayed was fabulous. You can find the Wessex website here and if you click on members details you can see the individual artists.

Brenda Weeks's work was wonderfully vibrant and colourful. Her embroideries reminded me of exquisitely detailed Indian watercolours. She has a lovely website here with lots more images.

Ruby Lever's lovely embroidery hangings were mouthwatering and looked wonderful all displayed in a row. The colours were very subtle and understated and the stitching exquisite.

Aren't these just the most gorgeous embroideries? They are the very talented Maggie Hills Alotment Chickens and were very popular in the Wessex Textile Artists stand.

I have more photos from the show so I will post about it again next week.

Back 28 November

2010-11-18T05:10:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone, sorry to be gone so long. Lots more to sort out and come to terms with than I ever thought possible. I will be back on the 28th though and look forward to visiting everyone again. I have missed you all.

Blog Pause

2010-09-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Sadly I will have to pause blogging for a while as we have had a family bereavement and there are lots of things to sort out and come to terms with. I will catch up with everyone when I return.

Autumn Umbellifers And Birds In Trees

2010-09-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Autumn is arriving and bringing Jack Frost along too. The temperatures at night are plummeting and it is time to get the quilts back on the beds again. Someone even mentioned a few flurries of snow before the end of September...surely not.

Below is a document folder I bought from a local stationery shop. I fell in love with the graphic design and colour scheme and decided to use the colours for my own piece of digital artwork. There is no name on the folder at all so I am not sure who designed it but they have done an excellent job.

The one below was my first image

but I decided to add a bit of black for drama. I am not sure which one I prefer but I do like the design a lot.

I started sketching for the Sketchbook Project a while ago but was very disappointed by the moleskine cahier that we were sent. The paper is far too thin for anything except pencil to my mind. All other media tend to show through to the other side and I hate that. Quite a few people who are undertaking the project have rebound the book with better quality paper. This is allowed provided the dimensions are the same and you keep the barcode on the back exposed. I intend to redo mine with much nicer and thicker paper more suited to ink and watercolour. It means redoing some of my sketches unfortunately. Below is one of my first ones - my theme is "if you lived here" and I will be doing lots of images with quirky homes, houses and nests, the interiors of tree holes etc. Anywhere you could live really.

The images below are all originally photos of umbellifers in the countryside which I have altered in PS filters and coloured variously. I love umbellifers and they look so nice when they are digitalised and coloured. I have hundreds of pictures of them in my photo folders so you can expect to see some more in my blog in the future.

I found several lovely books on a recent visit to an antique centre in a local town. A little bit more pricey that my charity shop finds but still worth it to me. My favourite was the book below by printmaker John Farleigh. He was an English wood engraver, painter, author and tutor who was very well known for his wonderful engraved illustrations. One of his pupils was Monica Poole, herself a very talented printmaker. She is the author of the book below. I love his graphic and detailed style. Click on the images below to enlarge them.

Here are some nice autumnal looking brick walls for you. I have always loved the colours and textures of old bricks and last weekend we took advantage of the Heritage Open Day event to visit a local family run brickmakers yard. Sounds really boring doesn't it? Well it was actually fascinating. We were given a guided tour over the whole yard and the complete brickmaking process. Much more complex than you think. We can now recognise handmade from machine made bricks and even know what the difference in shades denotes. It takes a lot of skill and experience to make and fire bricks to a saleable standard. This particular brickworks has supplied handmade bricks to Windsor Castle, Hampton Court and Chequers among many other famous places. The bricks in the walls below are all very old indeed and quite crumbly in places but what wonderful colours and textures.

Heritage Open Days are four days in September when you can visit lots of architecturally or culturally interesting places in England which are not normally open to the public, such as churches, old barns, factories, castles etc.

I was photographing this old house below when a chap stopped and asked if I wanted to know more about it. I had a few spare minutes so I said yes. He then proceeded to give me a fascinating potted history of the house, from the origination to the present, hugely wealthy owners. I thought he must be an amateur local historian but he told me he was the Town Crier and often did tours of the town for visitors and special occasions. Town Criers in medieval times passed on the town's news to the populace who could not read and he did this in an extremely loud voice whilst ringing a bell - hence they were also called Bellmen. There are around 200 left in England now and this chap was obviously very proud to be keeping an ancient tradition alive.

He told me that the bricked up doorway that you can see in the wall below was originally the way the servants entered the building. No front doors for them!

Lilo Fromm is a wonderful illustrator and artist from Berlin who has illustrated countless childrens' books. Below is one of her titles in German. I love that vividly coloured illustration on the front cover. Her artwork of the buildings below are beautifully delicate and harmonious. You can find more of Lilo's work here and there are examples of some of the titles she has illustrated if you type her name in Amazon.

Book Illustrated by Lilo Fromm

Hermitage

Marshy Town

The wonderfully whimsical images below are the work of the very talented Mexican illustrator/printmaker Jazmin Velasco. Jazmin uses different media to creat her work including linocuts which I really admire. I love the way she uses black and white with a touch of red to give zing. I like to use those colours in my pen and ink work. I actually saw Jazmin a couple of months ago at Art In Action event. She was assisting printmaker Colin Moore but there were so many people in the marquee I didn't get a chance to speak to her.

Jazmin's work can be found on her website here and she has a bright and funny blog here. You can also catch her at the Tile Kiln Studios open studio event in London on the weekend of the 25-26 September along with four other artists. (Don't you just love Archie?)

Brahms And The Fox

Archie

Fishy

Brahms Duet

Summer Blog Holiday - Next Post 19 September

2010-08-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

I have had such a busy week that I haven't had much time for creating artwork so the pieces below were both done quite quickly. I have plans for doing much more in the next couple of weeks as I am taking my summer blog holiday. The weather is quite autumnal now and the nights very chilly. Where has the summer gone? It only seemed like yesterday that we were admiring the spring greenery and now the leaves are starting to turn golden. I daren't mention the C word but I am starting to think about what image to use for my C cards.

I really enjoyed drawing this cute little pen and ink bird. Very decorative.

Pen and ink portrait of a woman

I took delivery of my moleskine for the Sketchbook Project today. This is an American based project whereby anyone who joins receives a sketchbook which they then fill up with artwork and send back to the originators. All the sketchbooks from all over the world then tour galleries and museums all over the country, before reaching the Brooklyn Art Library where anyone can view them. Finally they are put on the Internet for even more people to browse. I think it is a brilliant idea. You have to make sure you return your book to them before Jan 15 2011. I first learned about it from the lovely Caroline's studio as she is also participating. You chose your theme and then get sketching. My theme is "if you lived here" and I chose that because I can do lots of quirky little habitations. That theme has gone now but there are still a lot more to choose from. The Sketchbook Project website is here if you want to take a look.

I will be posting some of my sketches for the book in the coming weeks.

On a visit to the lovely and ancient market town of Thame recently I visited the huge and beautiful church. I found a couple of interesting pieces of statuary in the churchyard. The dog below is so lifelike it could almost be real,

but it belongs to this stone dedicated to a local animal lover.

This was the only angel I found but she is a beauty. If you look carefully she seems to be gazing at a brown moth.

It looks like it was carved but was definitely alive.

I found a lovely pigeon perched on a gravestone and just asking for his photo to be taken. The strong sunlight really brings out the colours of the stones.

A cute and tiny Thame cottage. It doesn't go back very far either. Just one up one down by the looks of it. Bit of a little doll's house really. I definitely wouldn't have enough space for all my books in there.

I found several interesting books in charity shops in Thame too. One of them is Drawing Techniques by Giovanni Civardi. I will tell you about the others in a later post. It is only a slim book but has some lovely pencil and ink illustrations and techniques about how to achieve them. I would like to spend a bit more time drawing with my pens as I feel I have neglected them a bit lately. Oddly enough I could have bought this book used for 74p from Amazon plus postage but at least my donation went to a good cause. Isn't Amazon amazing? It is no wonder they are loathed by book sellers.

Some nice flowering seedheads I spotted on my travels recently.

Flowering Artichoke

Echinops - Globe Thistle

Giant Thistle

I am a great fan of mixed media artwork although, for some reason, I don't often feature it on my blog. These gorgeous creations are the work of the very talented American artist Stephanie Rubiano. Stephanie originally trained as an scientist but found her love of art eventually took over. She is someone after my own heart with her beautiful vintage ladies and children with crowns and wings. You can see lots of her work on her website here, her Flickr site here, and her Etsy shop here.

Magpie

Eggsquisite

World Of Blossoms

Numero Uno

I visited a lovely little gallery in a local town today and found a couple of really nice greetings cards to add to my huge collection. This one is taken from a screenprint by Jane Ormes. Some of you will already be familiar with her work as she is a very popular artist. She creates wonderfully quirky screenprints and you can find lots more here at Rostra and Rooksmoor Gallery. Jane's own website is here, and she blogs here. I had to laugh that she hates men in flip flops. I think flip flops are horrible on anyone.

The second card is one by Sarah Venus of Flytrappublishing. I have mentioned Sarah and the website in a previous post. Well worth a peek here for anyone who doesn't know of them though. I think this is a great fairy linocut image.

Sarah Kirby is a UK artist and printmaker who produces the most lovely graphic linocut images. She is based at Leicester Print Workshop. She also teaches printmaking and artist book making. It would be great to take some of her workshops. I think her work is really beautiful and I particularly love her birds and trees. You can see lots more of her artwork here on her website.

Love Trees

September Bird

Mrs Griffith's Starling

72-78 New Walk

Two Cats And A Frog

2010-08-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

I was very amused at an incident at our local large supermarket today. I set off the alarm as I entered the store and was stopped by the security guard. I told him that I hadn't bought anything yet and he laughed. He wanted to know if I had a new jacket on. I was wearing one about a year old and had often visited the shop in it in the past. It turned out that it had a magnetic strip carefully hidden inside the washing instruction label. I wasn't even aware that it was there but he must have had experience of exactly that. It is the kind of tiny magnetic strip shops use on all sorts of "expensive" items like DVD's, pricey cosmetics etc. The shop where I bought my jacket should have removed it when I purchased it. He told me that the store had upgraded their security system and it was much more sensitive now, hence it recognised my magnetic strip whereas before it had ignored it. I went home and removed another one that I had in a similar jacket just in case. I bet the security guards were kept busy removing those strips from customers clothing since the upgrade.

This is The Gardener's Cat and took quite a while to draw. Not too sure about the text at the bottom though. I may change it to another font as I think it looks a bit messy and I think it would show up more if it were black.

I couldn't resist taking this photograph on a visit to Studham church recently. I have seen many, many churches in my time but never one with roses around the porch.

This is the beautiful monument that I had been meaning to photograph for some time. It is in Waterperry Church and is a dedication to a young mother who died aged 27 and left behind her less than 6 month old child. I think it is the most poignant and lovely sculpture and you get a real feeling for the grief of the bereaved husband. I took the photo by natural daylight because it gives a lovely glow to the marble.

If you love dogs and textiles you will love Sue Britton's website "Dogs in Stitches" here. Sue is a UK textile designer who creates beautiful and quirky studies of dogs getting up to all sort of mischief. She uses her own three dogs as inspiration and loves to include patterns and embellishment. Her website is a delight to browse and the dogs are irresistible.

Countryside Capers (detail)

Bundle Of Fun

Whilst cat sitting the other week I noticed Abby peering at something in the grass.

It turned out to be a frog who had been jumping around near the pond. It very obligingly kept still whilst I took its photo. Unfortunately Abby was intent on making the frog's very close aquaintance and I had to use one hand to fend her off and the other to photograph the frog. Eventually it returned to the pond and safety.

Poppy was paying absolutely no attention whatsoever, being more interested in a little laid back grooming.

The lovely ceramics below were made by UK ceramic artist Adele Thurstan. Her designs on the ceramics are very illustrative in nature and are produced from her pen and ink drawings which are screen printed using ceramic enamels on to the item. You can find more of Adele's work here at New Ashgate Gallery and here at Cambridge Contemporary Crafts.

I love Joe McLaren's illustrations. He has such a talent in whatever medium he happens to be working in. I think these Christmas cards below are a touch of genius and I wish I had thought of them. He knows exactly which colours to put together. You can find lots of his work if you do a google search for his name but otherwise he can be found here on his Flickr page.

Christmas Card 2

Christmas Card

Three Chickens On An Overcast Day

Three Chickens And Oast House

UK artist Jenny Holm's paintings are quite magical. They have a wonderful movement and rhythm and a lot of my favourite subjects. Her ladies are quite beautiful with their clothes and long hair flowing and her landscapes and trees are mystical and mysterious. Jenny sets the scene with colour and mood and leaves the viewer to decide on the narrative. She is based in Northumberland and you can find lots more lovely artworks here at The Biscuit Factory and here at her Axis site.

Hurrying Home

A New Day Dawning

With The Wind In Her Hair

Feeding The Birds

Textile Chickens And Angel Blessings

2010-08-13T11:25:00.000-07:00

My images this week are both angels with blessings. I told you I would be doing a lot of angels now that I have my copyright free angel book, although actually the digital angel predates the book.

This is my first etching for quite a while. I have gone over to washable etching ink now as I was making a hideous mess with the other one. The result is just as good to my eyes although there are probably some traditionalists who don't agree. I only have blue and black ink at the moment but I will get some more colours soon. I must say I am very pleased with how this has turned out and I don't say that very often with my etchings, being a beginner to the medium. I am definitely finding the inking up the most difficult part of the process but I have the same problem with linocuts too. Hopefully that will come easier as I get more experienced at printing. I will probably have a dabble with my copper plates soon.

This is called Blessing The Hare

This is the etching on the perspex plate. It is clear. The brown paper behind is so that it can be seen easily.

Tree Guardian Blessing The Autumn - I drew this quite a while ago as a pen and ink drawing but decided to add a touch of digital colour. I still have the pen and ink version though.

These beautifully complex landscape wood engravings are by the English painter and printmaker Garrick Palmer. He was born in Portsmouth in 1933 and taught at Winchester School of Art at the same time that I lived in the town. These must have taken him many hours of painstaking work to complete. You can see more of his work at Emma Mason here (3 pages) and also here at Old Stile Press.

Fields

Sun and Trees

We went on a geocaching visit to Haddenham village last week. It is the quintessential English village with houses grouped around a huge village green complete with ancient parish church and duck pond. The sort of village the producers of "Midsomer Murders" love. and oddly enough, I recognised this very village in one of the series which I got from the library. I have since read that it has been used as a backdrop by them no less than eight times. The village itself is Anglo-Saxon in origin and the present church dates from 1200's although there was undoubtedly a Saxon church here prior to that date. Haddenham is one of three wychert villages in the country, which is a method of using white clay and straw to make walls and buildings. As for the geocaching; that was great fun and we found all the caches.

The church has lots of lovely green and healthy looking lime trees everywhere. Very photogenic.

This lovely old cottage was right up beside the church. They have some huge hollyhocks and I bet they have a wonderful cottage garden on the other side of that wall.

This lovely old house was on the other side of the church.

A couple of the residents of the village duck pond

and finally a wonderfully textured old doorway of a deserted house in the village. Not sure I would want to live there though. I notice it is number 13.

Josephine Broekhuizen is a Dutch artist who married and settle on Arran in Scotland where she has a large studio and smallholding. I love the subtlety of her oils and still lifes and those Marans' are gorgeous. She has also produced linocuts and collages. You can see lots of her work here and you can also see her earlier work archive here.

Maran Chickens

Field Fares

Three Men In A Boat detail

I love this beautiful pen and ink hare and green woodpecker by Anne Mieke Lumsden. Originally from Holland but now in Somerset she works mainly in ink and oils. Her hares are lovely and you can see some more here at Fountain Fine Art.

Rose Clay's Etsy shop is a delight to browse. It is called Three Sheep Studio and you can find it here. Rose is a very talented fibre artist who uses beautiful wool to create her lovely designs. She then enjoys embellishing them with various hand embroidery stitches, glass beads etc. She also creates traditionally hooked rugs and dyes her own woollen fabrics for sale. A lot of the designs are available as PDF patterns. My favourites have to be the Urban Chicken series, of which three can be seen below.

Beaded Wool Berries

Jacobean Flower Wool Work

Angels And Animals

2010-08-05T09:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry the post is a bit lengthy this week. All those angel photos I expect but I thought I would post them all together rather than doing some this week and the rest next. Keep all your angels together I say. I will have to start searching for some new angels to photograph now which means another trip up to one of the outer London Victorian cemeteries.

I had intended posting my latest etching, which is an angel oddly enough, but it has taken much longer than I anticipated so I will have to leave that one for next week.

I have gone for a bit of colour drama with this digital image. I am not entirely happy with it though. I may have to tweak it a bit. I think the background may need a bit of black to affiliate it more with the tree as the tree is standing out too much. I am thinking this tree would make a nice needlepoint design.

This is a pen and ink drawing of a kingfisher. Now this one I am entirely satisfied with. No tweaking needed here.

These images are of my latest charity shop find. It is un-named but it is obviously an etching which I think may have been printed as a plate for a book. I am not sure what the process is but it is beautifully reproduced and the detail and colouration are exquisite. It is a very large artwork but only cost me £4.95 which I think is a bit of a bargain.

If you click on the image here you can just see the beautifully etched big cats lurking in the jungle.

I visited a favourite local art and craft gallery today who stock Marlene Hounam jewellery. I have a bracelet of hers that I bought some while ago and would love to add to my collection. She works in silver and semi precious stones and creates some gorgeous designs. Below are two favourites I crave.

The Rudge family are rightly very well known for their ceramic work. The family comprises Lawson E who is the father of Keza, Dillon and Lawson. They are all talented ceramic artists and sculptors with their own individual styles. I particularly love the stylised work of Lawson Senior who crafted the images below. You can find examples of his work at the following sites - at the Montpellier Gallery here, Rostra and Rooksmoor Galleries here and Lantic Gallery here.

Square Cow

Round Rabbit

Below are some photos of the angel sculptures I have collected over a period of time. I have removed the backgrounds of most of them because they distract from the beauty of the sculpture. Most of these sculptures are from the Victorian period. We would be a lot poorer without the Victorian ideal of funerary monuments. I think they are more beautiful now with stains of age upon them than they probably were when they were first erected.

The lovely oils below are the work of artist and illustrator Hannah Giffard. Hannah trained at Norwich School of Art and loves the wide open Norfolk countryside. Her stylised animal and bird images are beautifully painted and she uses symbolism to produce an almost mythic quality to her work. I think it is wonderful. Hannah has a great website here with lots of images of her art to enjoy and also details the childrens' books and other work she has produced. Definitely a visit worth making.

Ram And Crows In The Barley

Two Crows In Poppyfield

Hares At Caister

Hare And Crow In The Corn

Lesley found a lovely ex-library book in a local charity shop recently (she knows what I like!) It is "What Is The Truth" by Ted Hughes and is beautifully illustrated by R.J. Lloyd. It is a combination of poetry and prose and is called A Farmyard Fable For The Young. I haven't had much to do with Ted Hughes poetry in the past but there are some here that I really like. These are all connected with nature and animals and birds. Reginald Lloyd is a very well known artist with work in many prestigious collections, including the V&A. He has illustrated this book with numerous images and I have just chosen some of my favourites below. They have a lovely graphic quality, and I love the way he has employed the moon in many of them.

Here is the poem relating to the fox - or the last verse anyway:

"And he's nailed our fear of darkness to his four paws dipped in quickness,

Our cowardice a nail

In the white tip of his tail,

With the limestone from our hearts, he's whitewashed his underparts,

And he flees us like a robber, says the Hunting Horn"

A Little Bit Of Whimsey And Cuteness

2010-07-29T10:05:00.000-07:00

My poor blog posts get later and later, mainly because I am so busy at the moment with other things. I had intended doing some more etchings this week but couldn't fit them in. I will try and get some done for my next post though. I will also have to start thinking about my 2010 Christmas card artwork - already!

Dancer And Fox Friend - Ink and Fibre Tip Pens

Pen and ink drawing called The Bird

I visited a local car boot sale on Sunday and found some useful things. The book below only cost a small amount and it is stuffed with copyright free angel art - large and small. A very good find for an artist who finds drawing wings difficult. No excuse now so watch out for some angelic drawings in the next posts.

This pile of magazines are Photography Monthly and Elle Decoration. They both cost roughly £3.50 new but I got them very cheaply. I worked out that if I had bought them new they would have cost me £62 but I got them for £5.50. Not a bad bargain really. They have lots of lovely photographs which I use in my scrapbooks for inspiration for my own artwork.

The lovely porcelain figures below are the work of Scottish ceramacist Eleanor Bartleman. Eleanor's work has a strong mythical and narrative element and all the figures are beautifully and delicately modelled. She now lives in Devon and sells her work all over the country. You can find Eleanor's website here and if you click on each individual image in the gallery it will take you to further images.

Nymph With Squirrels

Rabbit Reclining

Here are a few of the lovely creatures we have met on our travels recently. Below is a Patagonian Mara which is basically a giant guinea pig. This one was in the corner of field bordering Whipsnade Zoo. He didn't seem a bit frightened. You cannot see it here but he was behind a wire fence.

This is one of a herd of lovely Jacob sheep. I love this breed. They are always beautifully marked and interestingly enough they are actually black sheep with white markings and not the other way round which is what I thought.

These two shots are of a large flock of Canada geese and young near a local reservoir. The adult birds were very protective of the young ones and I was kept a very close eye on by a number of adults whilst I was getting my photos of them.

Carry Akroyd was one of the artists in the printmaking marquee at Art In Action. I have featured her gorgeous work before on this blog but I was really pleased to see that she had a wonderful new book out. I had some book tokens and so I bought myself a copy. It is a wonderful book full of her vibrantly coloured screenprints and linocuts. She has a fantastic style and is very interested in nature, birds and ecology.

I also have a copy of her beautifully illustrated book of John Clare's poetry which is authored by David Powell. There are masses of linocuts in this softbacked book and it is one I treasure.

Definitely one of my best art book finds this year. Carry Akroyd is a lovely, friendly lady too and it is just a pity that I was so excited about the book I forgot to take a photo of her stand at the event.

The lovely graphic and stylised images below are from two greetings cards that I bought from Waterperry when I visited Art In Action. I found them in the permanent art and craft gallery that is there all the year around. They have some wonderful items. These are by artist Gail Kelly whose website is called Algan Arts. Gail is an Irish printmaker who produces her beautiful images onto Irish linen and also creates etchings and lithographs of mystical sites and standing stones and circles. Pop over to her site to look at her artwork here. There is lots to see and admire.

Oak

Apple

I was really delighted to discover the artist Angela Smyth recently. I love her wonderfully quirky and humorous work. She also does some great pen and ink illustrations. Angela comes from an Irish background and her father taught her how to draw shire horses from a very early age. That early tutelage has paid off because now her lovely work is collected world wide. If you go here to the Hawthorne Gallery you can see masses of her artwork and a lovely biographical note about her life and work.

Nesting

Make Me A Wish

Friends For Life

Cherry Cakes

Art In Action 2010

2010-07-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

I have gone all black and white and graphic this week. This is a pen and ink drawing called "Waiting For A Friend"

Just a little cat and bird drawing

I found a beautiful piece of music on YouTube the other day which I know you will all love. It is called Saylon Dola by Russell Watson and Maire Brennan - gorgeous. I think I have almost worn out this version.

Art In Action 2010 seems to have come round very quickly this year. It was just as enjoyable as in previous years but I didn't take so many photos. Last year I concentrated so much on photos that I missed quite a lot so this year I concentrated on seeing more whilst I was there. My main areas of interest were the drawing and printmaking, illustration and textile marquees but I did manage to get round everything. I also bought a beautiful book which I will tell you about next week. You will need to click on the photos to enlarge.

This papier mache sculpture by David Farrer was one of my favourite pieces of the whole show. It doesn't look it here but it is about four feet tall and enormous. All the body is covered in pages from books. You can see more of David's work here on his website. If you click on "making and conservation" which is just under the image blocks you can see how the sculptures are made.

The needle felted artwork below is by Eve Kelly. She takes needle felting to a new level with her amazing work. You wouldn't think this was created just using felted wool and a needle and a whole heap of talent of course.

Below is textile weaver Alpa Mistry at her Dobby Loom where she weaves beautiful silk items. You can see Alpa's website here.

Two views of the huge ceramics marquee

Whilst I was at the show I tootled off to the beautiful gardens to take some photos. Waterperry is well known for its trees, shrubs and flowers. Below is a selection of some of the flowers and seedheads I came across.

and the pears for which Waterperry is famously named.

This is well known artist Jenny Wheatley demonstrating her work in the painting marquee. Some of you may remember Jenny as the guest judge on one of the series of Watercolour Challenge with Hannah Gordon. I used to love watching that programme. Jenny's painting style is very bright and contemporary. Below you can see a couple of her paintings. You can see more of Jenny's work on her website here or at the Bourne Gallery here.

Witch's House, Keswick

Party Shoes

This is a photo of Jane Hickman's greetings cards printed from her original batik designs. I have mentioned Jane and her gorgeous work before but for anyone who doesn't know her you can find her website here.

I spent a long time browsing in the printmaking and drawing marquee. I came across some well known artists there. One of them was Carry Akroyd who I have mentioned previously. The work is very varied and of such a high standard and it is fascinating to watch these experts demonstrating and explaining their techniques. I could have spent the entire day in just this one marquee. I don't blame the people who get a ticket for the entire four days of the show. Brilliant idea.

Art Swap, Angels and Nymolle Ceramics

2010-07-15T12:43:00.000-07:00

I have had a very busy time since last blogging but I have lots of catching up with everyones' blog posts to do now. We have had some much needed rain but it has gone back to hot, hot, hot again this week. The summer is speeding away and Christmas is just around the corner...just joking....or am I?

A while back (quite a long while back actually). Lesley of sea blue sky abstracts blogspot and I agreed to do an art swap. She sent me this beautiful painting very quickly but then had to wait ages until I had done my pen and ink drawing. She was very patient. I love this artwork for its lovely lines and gorgeous, serene colours. I haven't yet decided the best place for it to hang but I am working on that. Lesley is a very talented artist who lives in Cornwall and is inspired to produce beautiful artwork of the Cornish sea and coast. Pop over to her blog and say hello.

this is the pen and ink drawing I produced entitled Nuthatch which I am glad to say Lesley liked. She didn't specify any particular theme but left it to me to decide. I just hoped that she liked birds!

This is my latest digital drawing entitled "taking care not to spill any". I posed my mother with this one as she has good hands for drawing. In fact she has provided the reference for a lot of my drawings involving hands.

I found some lovely new James Lynch greetings cards a short while ago. You may remember that I featured this fantastic artist some weeks ago. He works in oil and egg tempera and produces beautiful landscape and animal work with a lovely glow to the colours. The cards are by Towell and Scott and you can see the full range of James Lynch's cards here.

Some views of the beautiful countryside nearby. The trees are looking very lovely in their deep green summer garb and this week we have had some much needed rain so hopefully everything will not be turning brown too soon.

Out on our geocaching walk recently we invited ourselves to homemade cakes and teas at a local church hall. I spotted these lovely angels whilst walking through the churchyard. I have been to this particular church before but these seem to have escaped my eagle gaze. They are sculpted in beautiful honey coloured stone and are so pretty that I couldn't leave without a photo. The cakes were delicious by the way and the tea came in large mugs. Much better on a hot day than the delicate china cups.

and here is the complete monument to Alfred Gates complete with the trio of angels. Aren't they lovely. They look particularly nice with the filtered sunshine highlighting them.

I am a great fan of retro ceramics and textiles and I found some great images of Bjorn Wiinblad's wall plaques a little while ago. Wiinblad was well known for his sweet, whimsical and very detailed designs. These wall plaques were designed for Danish pottery Nymolle and you can find the rest of the set here. Interestingly they are not as expensive as I thought they would be.

Konflikt Wall Plaque

Paradis Wall Plaque

Maskerade Wall Plaque

I have long had a great admiration for the paintings of Ophelia Redpath. Ophelia is an English artist who originally decided on music as a career but later turned to painting, and we are very glad she did. Her work has quite an old world, almost naive charm about it, with intense colours and detail. She has exhibited very widely both here and abroad and is very well known and collected. You can see a huge display of her artwork here at the Darryl Nantais Gallery.

Grow Your Own

Feeding The Geese

Bring Back My Bonnie To Me

I found a couple of lovely little booklets in a charity shop recently. They are about touring the county of Herefordshire and contain lovely illustrations by Peter Manders. They are scraperboard engravings and if I ever get even a tiny way towards producing work like this I would be very happy. The details of the engravings are wonderful. I have shown just a few below but there are lots more. I couldn't really find out anything about Peter Manders on the Internet unfortunately so no links to more of his work.

Whitchurch

Moccas Park

Lower Brockhampton

Madley

Next Blog Post 18 July

2010-07-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

I am having a week off from blogging now so my next post will be two weeks hence. Goodness isn't the summer flying by? I know they say that time seems to pass more quickly as you get older but not this fast surely?

This is Elegant Bird. Back to my usual palette of colours here although I enjoyed the change with my last digital drawing.

This is my latest scraperboard work in progress. It is of Michael and Lesley's cat Abby who normally skeddadles when she sees me but she was quite sleepy and amenable for once so I got a good photo of her. Doing a scraperboard of a cat is a lot trickier than I thought but luckily I have discovered that my rapidograph ink is a very similar black to that of the board. If I make an error in scratching I just ink over it and start again. Very reassuring.

These photos below are of Ashridge House and gardens. We visited on a Open Garden's Day and really enjoyed it. The House is now a management college and not open to the public but the gardens are extensive and well worth a visit. They have the most beautiful and varied selection of trees, some very old and huge. They also had very delicious cream teas set out in the Orangery which were irresistible (even to those on diets)

These lovely foxes are by artist Val George. You can see more of her work on the Bertram Enterprises site here.

Stealth

Young Fox Under The Moon

These gorgeous quilts are by textile artist Noriko Endo. She has a very detailed and time consuming technique whereby she lays all the tiny fabric elements on her base material and then covers them with fine gauze and quilts over the top to keep them in place. She calls it the confetti technique. I think her work is quite amazing. She has a deep love for trees and nature as you can tell when you visit her website here.

Mother Nature

Sylvan Ambience #2

Jenny Portlock's linocuts and wood engravings are gorgeously detailed and beautifully cut. The two images below are both linocuts although you can see examples of her engravings if you go here to Emma Mason's site. Jenny became a book designer for Longman Pearson after graduating but then went freelance to concentrate on printmaking. You can read a bit more about Jenny here at Norwich Print Fair

This is an article that I had saved for my cuttings folder about Jenny Portlock when she was interviewed by Craftsman Magazine years ago.

Harebells

The Hare And The Olive

A few blue flowers I have come across on my travels.

Lavender

Ceanothus

Lisianthus

Iris

I saw Anna Wadham's Geese painting quite a while ago but didn't know who painted it. I was delighted to come across her work and find the artist behind that lovely image. Out of season I know but who cares as it is so pretty and I have always been a fan of geese. Anna is a freelance illustrator who lives in Norfolk. She trained in surface design and childrens' book illustration and has had two books published. You can read all about Anna and see her work on her website here. She also has a lovely blog here and an Etsy shop here. I love her beautifully colourful and quirky artwork.

Anna Wadham Illustrations

Geese

Fox Face

Catwings

Elephant

Hot Summer Days

2010-06-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

Our weather has gone into summer mode now and is a little too hot for me. We are having around 29C at the moment. I don't mind the hot days so much if only the nights were cool. We are getting a bit short of water too with the grass turning quite brown and parched in the garden. Sadly the bright lime greens of spring are but a memory.

This is my uber favourite song on YouTube at the moment. Have a listen and see if you like it.

Tell Me Now What You See by Moya Brennan

I never watch football as I am allergic to it but I did feel a bit sorry for the English side. Such a crushing defeat is hard to take. Mind you they have gigantic salaries to take their minds off it.

This is my latest digital drawing - Scarlet And Gold

My latest flower photographs

I love this cute cat embroidery by textile and mixed media artist Jane Poulton. You can see some of her images here at the Contemporary Art Holdings site. Just click on the central image which says Jane Poulton.

The two lovely etchings below are by printmaker Will Vaughan. I find his work beautifully atmospheric and detailed. You can see more of his artwork on his website here.

January

Rookery

I am really enjoying being out and about in the local countryside this summer. We have been busy geocaching for several months now and recently decided to hide our own cache. It comprises fourteen little receptacles and the instructions to find them will soon be published. It has been fun trying to find places to hide them and be as creative as possible. The three views below are near to where one of the caches is hidden.

I have read about Hus And Hem on quite a few blogs recently so I thought I would pop over to their site here and have a look for myself. They are a Scandinavian company and Hus and Hem means House and Home. They have some beautifully stylish designs but these two below are my favourites.

Golden Apple Dishcloths

Mugs

Holly Wright uses reclaimed materials to make her beautifully quirky furniture and chickens and often the two together. You can see more of her craftwork on her website here.

I would like to wander through Sue Slack's gorgeously vibrant landscapes. She has a wonderful sense of colour. She is hugely inspired by nature and the areas around North Yorkshire where she lives and works. I particularly love her tree paintings. You find lots more beautiful landscape oils on her website here.

Terrington Series X

Sun Setting On Trees II

Rosebury Topping Series I