It's Raining Cats And Dogs

We complain about our wet weather but compared to the poor residents of the North West of England, we have nothing to complain about. They have had dreadful flooding over wide areas and destruction of homes and livelihoods. Sadly some people have also died as a result. Sitting here in the drier south of the country we cannot contemplate how awful it must be to have your possessions ruined by filthy water. My heart goes out to them.

I decided to try my hand at another collage this week. This is the result and it is called Josephine's Tree. The lady and the tree are collaged but the background is digital. I was going to paint the background but when I started the watercolour began spreading on to the collaged leaves and spoiled them, hence the digital colour.

Here is the detail of the little bit of text I found that I thought would go quite well with the picture.

This is a digital image called Red Tree. For some reason Blogger doesn't reproduce digital red colours very well. They always look blurry. Take my word for it that there is not a blur in sight on the original.

A couple of gorgeous snowy Christmas cards for you here. They are produced by Canns Down Press who have a nice display of cards this year here.

Snow Bike - Sheila McInnes

Special Delivery - Hannah Cole


Some local shots of our beautiful autumn foliage and scenery.

My most recent charity shop find was the 1983 book below by Joyce Hargreaves published by Batsford. It is full of really interesting printmaking information and great prints. I have posted three of my favourites below. I can't post a link because I cannot find very much at all about Joyce Hargreaves although apparently she has been printmaking for many years.

Cockerel

Scraperboard Sketch

Web

Who could resist this seasonal door mat from Gisela Graham. I love it but I don't think I could wipe my feet on them. It would be cruel. They are far too cute

The weather was wet and miserable on Thursday so I decided to treat myself to a visit to my favourite local contemporary art and craft gallery. This gallery is like Dr Who's tardis. Nothing much to look at on the outside but goes on forever inside. It is a treasure trove of lovely art and crafts and cards. They have their Christmas exhibition on at the moment. Once inside I noticed a display of ink and watercolour original paintings by an artist I was blogging about last week - Flora McLachlan. What a coincidence. They were so dainty and detailed in real life. I didn't realise that she painted as well as doing printmaking. I also found a couple of her images on greetings cards by PrimeArts. You can see the others here on their website. These will definitely remain with me.

Greetings cards by Flora McLachlan

I have been reading a lot about the newly opened Anthropologie shop in London lately and after seeing these necklaces on their website I think I will have to pay them a visit soon. They have lots of gorgeous jewellery on show. This is the US link but I am sure they will have similar in Regent Street.

Idlyll Respite Neclace

Stone Garden Necklace

Cornelia Forster was a very prolific Swiss artist and craftswoman who created in many media including paintings, drawings, sculpture, tapestry, embroidery, ceramics, photography and poetry. Quite an extensive list. I don't suppose she had much time to herself. You can see a lot of her work at Adhikara here.

I really like her simple and attractive fruits below

and totally love this woodcut. It is very simple but beautiful.

I came across some exquisite stained glass on the Internet the other day. I have posted about stained glass before (and probably will again) as I absolutely love it. Traditional or contemporary, it doesn't matter. I think the colours are so vivid and vibrant that they sing. Only glass illuminated by light can give you that effect.

Here are some wonderful examples by Ann Sotheran who can be found here, Hazel Yabsley here and Angharad Whitfield here.

Angharad Whitfield - Allium

Angharad Whitfield - In The Garden (Autumn)

Angharad Whitfield - If Nothing Ever Changed There Would Be No Butterflies (Detail)
(See the complete window here)

Hazel Yabsley - Change Of Wind

Curlew by Ann Sotheran

A Place For Everything And Everything In Its Place

The title of this post refers to my having another mega clearout. This one is even more mega than the last one. I am going through everything with a fine toothed comb and I am being quite ruthless in disposing of things I don't need or use any longer. Life is far too short to spend hours rumaging through items to find something. Hopefully I will soon have everything in its place.

I made a bit of a blog booboo the other day. I pressed publish post instead of save and I had to delete my incomplete post. What a shame you cannot put a post back into draft. It would have saved me a lot of time. I will be very careful with that in future.

This is part II of The Woman Who Planted Trees series. It has been a long time coming and I bet you cannot remember what part I looked like.

I have produced 8 new bird drawings this week. Here are 4 of them. I will probably make them into greetings cards. Hearts are my favourite icon at the moment.
The birds inspired me to do a bit of practice bird embroidery. I found it a lot harder than I expected as my machine kept doing its own thing. You can tell it is a practice piece as I didn't bother to iron out the creases...haha.

This is one of the roses in our garden from summers past when there was a touch of sun and a little moisture. Pretty isn't it?

A greetings card I bought on holiday in Cornwall a couple of years ago. I was very drawn by the beautiful colours and the delicacy of the artwork. It is by Sam Lauren Smith and she is an artist who produces a lot of her work as greetings cards and prints. Her paintings are quite mythic in subject matter with lots of trees and birds (just up my street...haha). Here is her website.

Penny Williams is a designer/maker of handmade jewellery and metal-work. She has some gorgeous quirky pieces on her website here. The majority of her humorous characters are cats, dogs and chickens and she gives them lovely little personalities all of their own.

Leopard Brooch

It's A Dog's Life Pendulum

Flying Chicken Brooch

This beautifully whimsical print is Zebra by Angela Harding. Angela is a painter/printmaker with a beautiful style and a lovely website here.

Now that the rain has abated temporarily and summer has returned, it is once again time for tea in the garden. If you are eating from the chinaware below then you are very lucky indeed. There are so many gorgeous patterns and designs on everything these days but particularly china. These items can be found among many other delights here at Artedona.

This has to be my favourite design. These butterflies are exquisite. This is Filet a Papillons by Alberto Pinto.

A stunning design by Gien called Cherry but you may find it difficult to decide where the pattern ends and the food starts.

and tasting tea from these beauties but always with the little finger extended. This design is Frivole by Bernardaud and is deliciously elegant.

My eldest brother and his partner have gone away for the weekend so we have been kitten and cat sitting. The kittens are not kittens any longer but have reached that lovely sinuously skinny and leggy stage. They are into everything though and are probably the feline equivalent of the human toddler but without the tantrums. They are spending most of their time in the garden racing to the tops of trees, poking frogs in the ponds, jumping over the fences into the neighbours gardens , in fact, all over the shop and behind the counter. Suddenly all is quiet and they are fast asleep.

Abbey just coming awake.

I had to gently dissuade Poppy from taking a pot shot at the bee at the top of this plant. Stung kitty is not pleasant.

Licketty taking a short break from his mischief making.

If you love gardens and you love art you will adore the artistic gardens of David Suff. He is a highly acclaimed and awarded artist who uses the techniques of printmaking and coloured pencil to achieve his stunning results. I didn't realise that coloured pencils could look this vibrant and detailed. The depth of colour he achieves is outstanding. I could be very happy wandering leisurely through his art gardens on a summer evening. He gives his work intriguing titles too. You can see lots more of his work on his website here. Don't forget to click on the numbers below and to enlarge each of the small images to see the entire site, including the commissioned section. It is well worth it. The three images below are David's work.

Conversation In A Shadowed Garden

Where Time And Memory Merge

Strange Boat

Yuri Poberezhny is a Russian graphic pen and ink artist of great talent. I love his style, subject matter and the incredible detail he achieves. As primarily a pen and ink artist myself I can appreciate just how long it must take him to produce the images. His work has the look of stunning Russian fairytale illustrations although it also has a very contemporary feel. He works as a teacher in junior art school and his inspirations are garnered from the children, his town and his country and memories of childhood. You can find ten pages of Yuri's illustrations on the great Artnow.ru website here and he also has a page on the Saatchi website here. A great talent.

Angels And Birds - What More Could You Want?

Quite late with my blog this week as everything seems to have taken ages to do. All that detail I suppose. Artists who draw minimalistic artwork must have so much more time for reading and browsing the Internet than people who like to draw detail.

Whisper A Secret - digital drawing

This is my latest pen and ink drawing which is unfinished. It is called The Voyagers for the moment but that could change. I still have quite a bit of drawing to do to finish the boat. I find that scanned drawings never look as good as photographed ones. You lose a lot of the detailed pen marks and everything tends to become greyed. I will probably photograph this when it is completed.

The rooks are finished now. I didn't add very much really because I didn't want to spoil them. It is so easy to spoil a drawing as I can tell you from experience...ha ha. I will be drawing some more rooks now I have the knack.

Pen and ink hare drawing which took ages to do and I am not 100 percent satisfied with it.

I received another lovely blog award from fellow blogger Kat of Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes. Kat is a cat loving (wouldn't you know it?) poet and writer and has a very interesting and entertaining blog.

I snapped this fellow turning over leaves on a wet day last autumn in Richmond Park in London. It must have been a fruitful exercise because there were several crows peering under leaves. The members of the crow family are fascinating birds. They are all highly intelligent and crows and rooks can learn to do quite amazing things.

I enjoy looking at crow and rook pictures and other black birds. Here is Valerie McLean's beautiful crow painting

These brooches are by jewellery designer Anna de Ville who is self-taught and is inspired by nature to produce her lovely quirky pieces. Her website is here and you can also find her work here.

Starling Brooch

Bird Brooches

Running Hare Brooch

I found these delightful artworks on the Flickr site of blueshineart here. I love the birds perched on her arms.

If She Could Fly

Mother

Girls and I

It is nearly Art In Action time again. This is a huge marqueed art and craft extravaganza which is held in the beautiful grounds of Waterperry House in Oxfordshire. (Rowan Atkinson lives in the village if anyone is interested...ha ha) I visited in 2006 and 2007 but I am not sure that I will be able to go this year. Just in case I don't I have posted below some of the photos from the 2006 event. All disciplines are covered and some of the artists are very well known as it is really the cream of the crop in the art and craft world. It is primarily designed for the artists to demonstrate their particular area of expertise although their work is for sale and there is a massive marquee selling their work.

If you enlarge the photos you can see the artists names.

This is in the textiles tent and this is tapestry artist Joan Baxter. Kirsten Glassbrook was also exhibiting at this show and it was lovely to see these two wonderful artists and their huge looms.

Joan Baxter demonstrating.

This is in the illustration tent and somewhere behind this press of people is Hannah Firmin who is a very well known printmaker and illustrator. She gave a fascinating display of linocutting.

This is in the stained glass tent.

This is in the Living Sculpture tent. The sculptor was a joy to watch.

If felt is your thing that you could do no better than visit 3FUN at her Etsy shop here where she handmakes her felt jewellery. Her work is beautifully bright, contemporary and fun.

Lush Line Abstract Flower Necklace

Tears Of The Phoenix Necklace

Purple and Green Bracelet

The images below are the paintings of Russian artist Alexander Anufriev. He was born in Russia in 1940 and educated at an art school for gifted children. In 1980 Anufriev emigrated to the USA and now lives and works in Washington. He is strongly inspired by Renaissance art and he says of his art "When I paint, I stand between the heavens and the earth trying to make the invisible visible. I find his pictures beautifully simple, mysterious and contemporary and could look at them all day. You can find lots more of his art at London Art.

Evening Harvest

Angel With Roses

Angel With Earth

Angel With Bird

Musicians

A Question

Untitled