Last Post Till 2010 - Happy Christmas Everyone

This is my last blog of 2009 so I will be back in the New Year. Have a fabulous Christmas and New Year everyone. (I will be popping in for visits though)

I have recently been introduced to a fascinating new leisure activity called Geocaching. It is basically hiding and seeking treasure. A little box is filled with "treasure" such as coins, spoons, badges, tiny dolls or anything else you have to hand. It is then buried or placed somewhere like a tree stump and the details are recorded at the Geocache website for others to locate. You need a GPS unit to find the location within 50 feet or so and then follow the clues left by the hider. Once you have found the treasure you record your name on the paper in the box, remove an item and replace it with one of your own and re-bury or hide for the next searcher to find. You then log on the website that you have found the item. Sounds simple - not always. We spent our second time hunting in local woodland, ferreting around under holly bushes and scraping over fallen leaves. We found three out of five caches though and got plenty of fresh air and exercise. The caches are always placed on public land and have different degrees of difficulty and any age group can join in . There are thousands of caches all over the country (and all over the world in fact). You can also elect to bury your own for others to find. I love it. You can find the website here if you want to take a look.

Autumn Bird is a digitally coloured drawing.

This is quite an old pen and ink study of a woodland copse near my home.

This is Party Girl in ink and watercolour.

The two seasonal lovelies below are by Florida artist Robin Maria Pedrero. I love the style of pastel shades and incomplete colouring that she has used here. Gorgeous work. You can find Robin here on her website and here on her Etsy shop. She also blogs here.

Partridge In A Pear Tree

Fancy Partridge In A Pear Tree

I found some gorgeous rag rugs when I was looking for santa gifts the other day. The site is called the Star Rug Company and you can find it here. They have some beautiful primitive type designs. I couldn't resist the sheep with a bird on its back...who can?

Lazy Sheep

and a couple of lovely seasonal rugs below

Santa and Reindeer Rug

Mr Snowman

I said I would post a photo of all the Christmas cards when they were completed and here it is. There are 111 cards here and they took a looooong time to do. I hope the recipients like them.

I took this a couple of days on our geocaching adventures. These are the sort of surroundings where a lot of caches are hidden. Great fun, healthy exercise and lots of tree photo opportunities.

I love this picture of a tree skeleton that I took a couple of years ago. It really showed white like old bones in the sunlight. It is almost sculptural in its beauty.

A final leaf caught on a branch.

I found some lovely work by ceramic artist Sue Tirrell the other day. Sue is a ceramic sculptor and potter working in Montana, USA who also teaches workshops. She has a very wide range of her work on her website here. Her inspirations are western art, contemporary and folk art. I love her almost linocut type images on her platters and pots. Very folky and graphic. You can also find her work here at Mudfire and here at Art Fusion.

Bird and Branch Platter

Goose Platter

Red Rooster Pitcher

Rabbit Platter

The three lovely etchings below are by UK artist and printmaker Laurie Rudling who works from her studio in Norwich. She admits to being an artist of landscape and the built environment. She produces etchings and collographs and has an lovely collection on her website here. I have seen some of her work in a local gallery and it is very subtle and beautiful.

Midwinter Calm

Rooks

Winter I

I found this wonderful book the other day about Textiles of the World. It is a large book and is jam packed with gorgeous colour photography and drawings. I have posted a few pages from the book but they don't do it justice. It covers all sorts of different patterns, fabrics, methods of production, tie dying, batik, embroidery, applique, molas. The list is endless. So much colourful inspiration I am overwhelmed. It is published by Thames and Hudson and is written by Catherine Legrand. A really monumental work. It is the sort of book you can dip into anytime when you have a few minutes. I have added this to my very extensive Amazon Wish List.

Molas

Indian Textiles

Guatemalan Textiles

Woven Textile Bags

Hester Cox is a UK artist/printmaker who produced the beautiful prints below. She lives in the lovely North Yorkshire area of Masham where she holds printmaking workshops. She is heavily influenced by the English landscape, myths and symbolism. I particularly like her work on the subject of hares - always close to my heart. She has named her artwork by the old names given to the hare in a fifteenth century hunting poem which has been translated by Seamus Heaney. You can find it here. It makes fascinating reading. I produced a hare drawing years ago with a lot of these names around the outside of the circle containing the hares. My favourites are: The Dew-Flirt, The Furze-Cat and The Purblind. You can find Hester's website here with lots of examples of her work.

Swift As A Hare

Protected

Rookery

The Lurker

The Messenger

Squirrel Mischief

The artwork is Christmas related this week. I am definitely getting into the Christmas mode now. The cards are almost finished and my own are waiting to be written and posted before we have another national postal strike!!!

This is called "Unexpected" for obvious reasons. Not sure if there is a man in the background or whether the skimmer wants a kiss under the mistletoe.

A very stylised partridge in a pear tree.

This is a quick digital sketch I did last Christmas as a response to seeing a TV programme where one of the characters got fed up with all the Christmas razzmatazz. I think quite a few people look like this at the end of the festive period.

Now for some childrens' illustrations. I love browsing the charity shops for childrens' books. They are extremely cheap and have some amazing illustrations. This is from the book "The Winter Hedgehog" by Ann and Reg Cartwright. I really like the colour palatte they have used here and that gorgeous purple gallinule. This is from a blog called Childrens' Fantasy Illustrations which you can find here.

Alice and Martin Provensen are American artists who illustrated childrens' books in the main. They worked together to produce some amazing artwork and I have posted some examples below. They were a married couple and I believe she is still alive although he died in the 80s.

This is the Flickr site here where you can find the Alice and Martin Provensen group.

A book illustrated by the Provensens uploaded to Flickr by john.red who can be found here.

An illustration from Karen's Opposites illustrated by the Provensens. This is from Flickr user art.crazed who can be found here.

The cover of the childrens' book illustrated by the Provensens. I love those hens.

An illustration from The First Noel by the Provensens. You can see all the illustrations here on wardomatic blogspot.

The woods don't look like this anymore. Most of the leaves have dropped now with the incredible gales we have had for the past week. It was great looking at and walking over carpets of leaves though.

I love this necklace by Etsy seller klmjewelry. You can find her shop here. She has some lovely items. This reminds me of the tiny coloured sweets we had as children.

I was out walking in local woodland a couple of days ago and spied this cute fellow. Not a brilliant photo but he was high up in the tree. I spotted lots of squirrels scampering around in the wood. They are very easy to spot when the trees are bare of foliage.

I was quite surprised to see him start munching on the tree bark. Then I noticed the bare patches of exposed wood and realised that he, or his countless relatives, had been chewing on this tree for quite a while. I looked around and there were quite a few trees with similar bare patches.

Apparently they strip the bark to get at the sweet sap underneath but sadly leave the tree exposed to infections and possible death over a period of time. They prefer some trees to others. I am not sure what species this one is.

He seemed to be saying to me "I can eat all the bark off this tree and you cannot do anything about it...hahah". I knew squirrels could be very destructive but hadn't witnessed it first hand before. Grey squirrels get a bad press but some of it seems deserved. I hate to see trees being damaged.

I found the website of textile artist Pamela Allen quite by chance when I was looking for something else. I love her bright, contemporary quilts. They are so full of life, colour and texture. Her website is full of lots of lovely fibrey things to look at here. (You will need to click on the pictures to enlarge them to get more of the detail.)

Getting My Ducks In A Row

Wanna Bite?

3 Guinea Fowl

Some of you may be familiar with the work of artist and ceramicist Claire Loder because she has recently been seen at Origin. This is the two week contemporary craft show at Somerset House which is organised by the Crafts Council. I used to go when it was in Chelsea but I haven't visited since it has relocated. I think I will have to start visiting again.

Claire produces amazingly quirky ceramic heads and faces. She is interested in the stories faces tell and is inspired by naive and outsider art. She has a website here and a very interesting blog here with lots of her work displayed.

She's Sunny

Her Hair

Her paintings can be seen here at the Brownston Gallery in Devon.

The Great Unknown

Shelter

Absolutely love this very graphic peacock wall decal by Sally Boyle. Lovely colours and design. Sally is a graphic artist and can be found here on Etsy.

Oxaca (pronounced Wa HAH ka) is one of Mexico's poorest states but it has a folk art tradition to rival anywhere. The woodcarving men and women of the area are famous for their beautiful and exquisitely painted carvings of animals, birds and people. They are deliciously humourous and quirky and are very collectable worldwide. The book below is one I have had for many years and is full of great illustrations of the art.

Mermaids - Avelino Perez

Turkey - Moises Jiminez

The beautiful Oxacan carvings below are from the Flickr site of Teyacapan who has some amazing Mexican artifacts, pottery and textiles. Well worth a look. Also lots more of these carvings to be seen here on her site.

Virgen de Soledad

Blue Bat

Blue Eyed Fox

Oxacan Jack Rabbit