Christmas Is coming...Too Soon

Well Halloween is nearly upon us. Be mindful that the veil between this world and the next is at its thinest on the 31st October. In the UK we put the clocks back one hour last night because British Summer Time has ended. The weather doesn't realise this though. Our temps this week are predicted to be around 20C which is amazingly high for this time of year. I am sure it will change soon and we will get some lovely crisp frosty mornings.

This is my third drawing in "The Woman Who Planted Trees" series. I am planning several more in the months ahead as it is a theme I am very much in tune with. It is pen and ink with digital background etc.

I have finally completed my 2009 Christmas card design. I am quite pleased with the composition. At first it looked a little bare and then I had the idea of putting in a row of trees to break up the middle distance. I think it has worked quite well. Now I only have to get all the cards made...! This is a blackbird by the way, for those of you who are not ornithologically minded. I have to put a black border around my images printed onto white otherwise I wouldn't have any idea where to cut.

The beautiful paintings below are by Suzy Fasht who is based in Devon where she works from her garden studio. She is very interested in gardens and nature with lots of gorgeous patterning detail and fantastic colour. Looking at her art is like a glimpse into another world - fabulous. Suzy has a page full of art like this at Axis here.

Meadow With Daisies


Swan With Luggage

Summer Meadow With Ghost Trees

For some time now I have wanted to get a copy of one of the Ernst Haeckel Art Forms books. I chose his Art Forms In Nature. For those not familiar with his work, Ernst Haeckel was a very eminent German biologist and artist who died in 1919. He illustrated a huge number of animal, sea creatures and nature forms in great detail in connection with scientific research. His artwork is so beautifully detailed and patterned that it has also become a valuable resource for the artist. His art provides an endless supply of patterns for those of us seeking inspiration - and that is probably just about every artist and craftsperson. (The possibility for new tree forms is endless.)

I love the distressed and decayed wood look of Margaret Keelan's ceramic sculptures. Her doll-like figurative forms I find quite fascinating. They remind me of childrens' toys discarded and left out in the garden. She admits to being fascinated by the female form and most of her work has been on this theme. There is lots more to see on her website here.

Pet

Woman With Turban

The Girl With The Rabbit

I love any greetings cards with cat pictures on. This beautiful card is by Maren Schaffner who is a German artist. She lives in a farmhouse with her eight cats and two dogs. She obviously has no problems getting kitty models to sit for her. Bottman Design Shop here has lots of her cards. The images are quite small but you can see what a great watercolourist she is. The shop I bought this card from only had a couple of others but there is a large range. (There are two other pages as well).

I thought you might like to see some moody black and white monumental angel photos I have in my archives. All have been photoshopped a bit.

This is my cat Jack who isn't an angel yet, thank goodness, but he is looking very moody and statue like in this shot so I have included him. In fact, he is looking a little bit "witches catish" here. Now I come to think of it, he does tend to disappear around Halloween time...hmmm.

I have long admired the beautiful embroidery of Rebecca Crompton who grew up in the early 1900's and became a teacher of embroidery at the Croydon School of Art. This is a Rebecca Crompton and Elizabeth Thomson booklet which I bought from the Embroiderer' Guild bookstall at the K&S Show a few years ago. It is beautifully illustrated, and unlike my old book below, it is still easy to obtain.

This is the Rebecca Crompton book I was lucky enough to find at the Knitting & Stitching Show a couple of weeks ago. It was from one of my favourite book vendors there called Felicity J Warnes, The Old Bookshop which is actually a B&M shop in Enfield. The stand at the show is very small but they have some lovely old, out of date treasures.

Below are some of the illustrations of her work in the book. It is filled with applique embroideries and lots of her sketches and drawings. The book is dated 1936 and the illustrations are mostly black and white. The embroidery below is called Magic Garden. Interestingly enough I have seen photos of this same embroidery with much paler colours and reversed. I am not sure which is the original orientation.

The images below are all etched by the Scottish artist and printmaker Catherine Grubb. She uses a variety of media to produce her beautifully delicate and detailed work including drawing, painting and etching, and her work is highly collectable. I have illustrated her etchings here, but her pen and ink drawings and paintings are equally lovely. Being a pen and ink artist myself (although nowhere near her ability) I am always interested to see how others handle the medium. Her work is extensively illustrated on The Great Atlantic Gallery site here.

All In Green Went My Love Riding

The Mysterious Garden

The Secret Lane

The Sailing Of The Sea Swallow

The Enchanted Forest

Summer Flowers and Chickens

I popped this one back into PS this morning and changed the pinky coral tree to a white one. I think it balances the image more and the chicken's comb doesn't get mixed up with the tree anymore but stands out. A definite improvement I think. The sharp eyed amongst one may remember these chickens with a different background and different colours. I felt I could improve on it and I think this does. I am pleased with it anyway.

I enjoyed drawing this pen and ink kitty. His face reminds me of Felix in the Purina cat food adverts.

Found this beautiful angel etching on Eleanor Healy-Wills website here. She has some lovely etchings displayed.

I was tagged the other day by blogging friend Lesley of Sea-Blue-Sky & Abstracts to give a list of 6 silly things I like.

1) Walking through quiet woods and touching the trees as I go past.

2) Picking up beautifully shaped leaves from our local town where they have some wonderful trees in the high street. I press them and use them for drawing.

3) Sitting out in the back garden at midnight just to take in the peace and quiet.

4)Watching the night sky for meteors or satellites.

5) Scaring myself silly watching ghost films on TV late at night.

6) Re-reading my old copies of Fungus The Bogeyman and When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs.

I am really into retro colours and designs. I love this retro ceramic found on Etsy user PardonMyVintage's site here.

Lots of lovely flowers around this summer but the weather has been down in the dumps. It is quite funny really because in spring we were told with great glee by the media that the long range weather report was forecasting a "barbecue summer" with very high temps. We did have about a week of very hot weather and since then it has rained and been quite cool. A typical summer really. The weather office are now back tracking and stating that they said there was a 65% chance of a hot summer. Don't you wish sometimes they would not try to predict the weather weeks ahead? They admit that they can only accurately predict it a week ahead anyway. A number of people decided not to go abroad for their holidays this year because they thought the English summer would be exceptional. Having said that we have now been told that the next week will be getting warmer again. We shall see.

These are some hedgerow dogroses from a while ago. Common flowers but they are so pretty.

I photographed these in a garden centre a couple of years ago. Gorgeous blues.

It is only early August but a lot of the crops have been harvested and I think there is a tiny hint of approaching autum. I suppose it makes sense really considering that all the seasons seem to be a month ahead. I spotted some fully ripe blackberries in a hedge recently. Surely they are far too early.

I happened to find myself in a local town the other day with one of the Oxfam shops entirely dedicated to secondhand books. What a little paradise. I was in there far too long but I found this little gem. I have mentioned before how much I love the Lark Series books. I have quite a few now but this is one I didn't think would appeal. Once I looked inside though I was amazed and fascinated by the types and styles of work by contemporary basket makers. Some of them are so incredibly imaginative that you wouldn't even think to call them baskets. The most amazing thing of all was that the book was only £3. Such a bargain couldn't be ignored. Here are three fascinating and beautiful examples of contemporary basket art I found inside.

Amy Lipshie-Amphora. This beautiful artwork is created from cereal boxes.

Barbara Walker-Les Petales. This is woven from bleached and unbleached linen cords made by the artist. This is a beautifully designed piece.

Jo Stealey-Fruits of My Labour-Fertility. This lovely artwork is created from waxed linen, reed, handmade paper and silkworm cocoon. Jo's website is here.

A few years ago I came across printmaker Roger Harris (at Art In Action but I will say it quietly as everyone is probably tired of it now...ha ha) I was very impressed by his beautiful mezzotints. Mezzotints are etchings where the metal plate is prepared beforehand by use of a tool called a rocker. The rocker has tiny teeth and is rocked back and forward over the whole plate. Basically it is a very time consuming method of producing a print of exquisite quality and depth of colour. I was entranced by his detailed work which is absolutely gorgeous in real life. He very patiently explained the whole process to me although he had probably already explained it to at least a million people beforehand. It must take a true love of printmaking to go to such trouble but so very worth it. You can see more of Roger's work here at Iona Gallery.

Lady Godiva

Spirit of the Wood

I have a long-standing love affair with etchings and trees and when the two come together so beautifully as in the etching/aquatint by Jo Barry, I am in heaven. More of Jo Barry's work can be seen here at Iona Gallery also.

These are my flower photos from some little while ago. I thought I would do a little nature colour coordinating. Apparently purples and lilacs and violets are very popular colours at the moment. I was mentioning to someone the other day that I have difficulty in assigning names to the colours in the purple/violet range of the spectrum. I am quite good with reds and oranges and greens and turquoises but those purple, mauve, lavender, lilac and violet colours fool me.

These beautiful bracelets are the work of Shropshire based craftswoman Lana who admits to being obsessed with colour (I know how she feels). She certainly has a wonderful sense of which colours to combine. The bracelets are made from cotton, silk and merino yarn. Lana also creates other textile lovelies and can be found here on Etsy as "easternsky".

The paintings below belong to the highly talented English artist Anna Pugh. Anna lives a modest life in the countryside where she paints extremely lovely images of animals, nature, the countryside and things around her. She has a particular affinity with dogs and plants, but I love her hens and cockerels best. Her style is bright and detailed folk art and she has a huge following. You can look at her paintings for ages because each one has so many different elements and scenes within scenes, but the whole picture gels together as a complete entity. You can find a large collection of her work at Lucy B Campbell gallery here. I was also lucky enough to come across her book of paintings a few weeks ago. The book is dedicated to showing off her artwork rather than text, but the paintings speak for themselves.

Last Set

Mountain Pool

A Change Of Heart

The Challenger

Two Partridge

More To come