Eye Candy

This is a digital drawing titled "Peaceful Birds". I think perhaps it could be improved with smaller leaves and bigger birds....ha ha.

and this is the sketch of the original idea. I liked the design even as a really rough drawing.

These are pen and ink drawings which were originally designed for handmade greetings cards but I never got around to putting them on the cards. I think they look nicer as a montage of coloured trees in a very surreal landscape.

This is a pen and ink drawing with a bit of digital red. It took ages to do all those feathers.

Stripey Hats - a very quirky digital drawing

I love this gorgeous pastel. It is called Butterfly Boy and is by Sharon Yamamoto. I met Sharon some years ago at a craft fair. She is a Japanese American artist whose work is delightfully mystical and magical. She produces some of her images on ceramic art tiles and the colours are vivid and vibrant and much more intense than paintings. I recommend a visit to her lovely website here.

Sunrise Voyage - Sharon Yamamoto

Some tulips and apple blossom to get us in the mood for spring. I am hoping the apple blossom will be out soon as I want to take some new photos. The forecast predicts a very cold week though, so perhaps we shall have to wait a little longer for spring to arrive.

It is March the first today so it must be St. David's Day. So to all the Welsh people all over the world - Cyfarchion - which I hope, translated, says greetings.

I found these delightful geese on the internet the other day. They are the work of mixed media artist Kathleen Mattox who has a blog here.

I had a lovely gift in the post from Catriona Millar. You may remember that she was my featured artist on December 13th 2008. She emailed me about the blog post and said she would send me a copy of the recipe book which features her artwork. I received it the other day and it is a wonderful book called Fun with Spinach by Mike Robson. It has lots of beautiful paintings by Catriona. So thank you very much Catriona and the best of luck with your delightful art. Catriona's website is here if you want to pop over and have a browse.

I have decided that this is my absolute favourite of Catriona's paintings. I just love the theme and the pastel colours she has used.

The embroideries and artwork below are all the work of English textile artist Audrey Walker. She is the daughter of a Cumbrian embroideress and produces textile work which is almost painted on the cloth by her stitches. She originally trained as a painter in Edinburgh and has always been particularly interested in figurative work. Her work is layered with fabric and millions of machine or hand stitches. Her sense of colour, shade and tone is incredibly subtle and beautiful.

I have met Audrey at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London in the past and have also visited exhibitions of her work and it is truly lovely. Some of her pieces are huge and you have to stand back quite a distance to appreciate them fully. It must take hours and hours of painstaking work to put in so many tiny stitches but what she produces is well worth the effort.

I love the way her subjects gaze at each other and into the distance; speaking without words. There is a quality of mystery and stillness about them. Most of the pictures are from a Ruthin Craft Centre book that I bought some time ago and also the superb Diana Springall book called Inspired to Stitch which has to be one of my favourite books - but that is another story.

Temptation

Study for Woman at Window

Adam and Eve

Hear No Evil

Who's There

Beach Woman

Study For Temptation

Gaze 1v

This image shows the detailed stitching in Audrey Walker's work. Close up the stitching is very visible but she has such an comprehensive knowledge of shades and tones, that if you stand away from the art, it all gells together to make sense of the form. You will probably need to enlarge the image to see the stitching properly.

I have had a good week drawing on the computer. Birds have made their appearance again...don't they always. If it wasn't for birds my repertoire would be very much smaller.

After posting a picture of an Anita Jeram kitty last week I am now thinking about drawing cats. Cats are easy to draw in pointillism but that style takes months to do so I will have to think of a different technique of making a cat look like a cat, or I may just draw a stylised cat. The wonderful thing about stylising images is that no one can look at them and say they are wrong. They can be whatever you want them to be as long as they vaguely resemble felis catus. Having two cats in our house and family and neighbours with cats, there is no shortage of inspirational material.

Catriona Millar and Retro Fabric Prints

These four runner ducks have appeared in lots of my artwork. I think they are just so cute. I thought I would give them a really upbeat background this time.

A piece of my imagination which I quite like. I call this one Conversation Piece

A very decorative chap, part bird and part cockerel.

Pen and ink drawing entitled Maura.

I found a lovely library book the other day on 1960s prints. All the fabric designs below are from this book by Marnie Fogg. Quite a lot of psychedelia but some quite restrained designs too. I love retro fabric prints of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Very nostalgic

This is my absolute favourite of the book. I love the hand drawn appearance of the flower motifs and the simple colour palette. I can feel some flower drawings coming on....lol. This is Odette, by Alexander Henry Fabrics. They must have had some very good designers.

A Marimekko1969 fabric called Paaryna which presumably means pears in Finnish. A lovely simple and graphic design. Gorgeous.

This beatifully graphic fabric by Alexander Henry Fabrics is called Shinjuku and is very inspiring for pen and ink artists. Love the hint of red among the black and white. One of my favourite colour combinations and one I use a lot in my own pen and ink work.

I really like gingham fabrics. They remind me of the summer dresses worn by millions of English schoolgirls. This is another Alexander Henry Fabrics design with a modern twist.

This is an amazing design by Alexander Henry Fabrics. You would have to choose very carefully where you put this and with what.

Love this fan design which is a 60s return to an Art Deco style. Apparently sunrises and open fans were very popular Art Deco motifs. Designed by Natalie Gibson.

This is a 60s abstract fabric, designer unknown.

Peonies and carnations print by Natalie Gibson. You couldn't feel depressed with a design like this around.

This fabric design is Treetops by Heal Fabrics. It is a little reminiscent of the style of fabric used by Zandra Rhodes.
The following images are all the work of Scottish painter Catriona Millar whose website can be found here.

Well, we are nearly there now. Christmas is just a whisper of tinsel away. Yesterday it rained every single minute of the day and it certainly put a damper on Christmas shopping. The crowds were out and about but everyones' spirits seemed to be well and truly dampened by the weather. Now if it had been about 6 degrees colder and the rain had been snow, that would have put an entirely different complexion on things. It would have felt wonderfully Christmas like and would have put a spring in everyones' step. But that didn't happen like that. But if it had....?

I have been beavering away with writing all my Christmas cards and also writing the letters to go with a lot of them. Like most people, I probably only communicate once a year with quite a few people and I feel I owe them more than just a few lines on a card. I know I am making a rod for my own back but I think it is fair that way, and of course, there is always the hope that they will reply with a nice little letter back about their doings throughout the year. The fact that I have most of their email addresses and could keep in touch in seconds is quite another matter. That would be spoiling the enjoyment of the yearly letter...lol.

Plenty of eye candy in this week's blog. I absolutely adore pattern and particularly retro pattern and I have illustrated some of the fabric designs from a library book I discovered. I am sure you will find something you like there.

Anyway, enough of Christmas things. My artist this week is someone who is gaining enormous popularity in the art world. She is Catriona Millar and she works mostly figuratively and in thick oils. Her work has a beautiful texture and I love her use of pattern and colour. There is a lovely naive and narrative quality about her images which I love. Apparently her degree show sold out within hours which is quite amazing but obviously the start of great things to come. I hope you enjoy her works as much as I do. A lot of the images are "borrowed" from galleries where she exhibits such as the Riverside Gallery and the Saatchi Gallery and you can also buy her cards from Art Cards Cornwall. Her own website can found found here.

Definitely someone to keep an eye on in the future.