Ceramic Figures and Stripes

This is a digital drawing called Dreaming In Stripes. I have drawn quite a few stripey artworks lately so I will probably have a rest from them. I do like stripes though...!

It has been a while since I posted a quirky drawing so here it is. Balancing On Buttons.

A little bit out of season but this is Winter Fox in ink and watercolour

Does anyone else stockpile greetings cards to keep handy in case of necessity? I have a wonderful collection but unfortunately I like most of them too much to part with them. So, a large collection of cards but only about a fifth of them available for sending to people. My two latest cards are both by Canns Down Press from their Royal Academy range but they do lots of other cards in other ranges. You can find their site here.

Sussex Landscape by Eric Ravilious

Bird's Nest Pattern by Edward Bawden

Harking back to Waterperry; they have some lovely statues in the gardens and these are two of my favourites. Miranda from Shakespeare's The Tempest is below. She resides at one end of the long pond and was sculpted by Tanya Russel. She is well liked by the local spiders judging by the webs on the detail picture.

Lamp of Wisdom by Nathan David. This lovely girl is holding court in the formal garden.

Another lucky charity bookshop find recently was the embroidery book by Verina Warren below. Verina Warren is one of the most talented textile artists in the UK. I have met her at shows and seen her work first hand and it is fabulous. Photos could never do it justice. She paints her backgrounds and then stitches into them to create beautiful textiles. She has a wonderful sense of colour and design. I was pleased to find her book, which, although written in the mid-80s is still very interesting and applicable today. She shows lots of ways in which natural surroundings can be used for contemporary design and embroidery. The book is published by Batsford and can be found here at Amazon UK. But, amazingly enough, I see there are several copies for £0.01. That is even better than my charity shop find. Aren't Amazon amazing for finding out of date book bargains? Verina has a lovely website here with lots of images of her stunning textiles.

Pages from Landscape In Embroidery

Embroidered textiles by Verina Warren.

Dorset Hills

Daisy Field

Music Of The Wind

Has anyone else got a passion for alliums? I think they are absolutely gorgeous flowers. Strange that they are related to the very humble onion. We have quite a few in our garden but there is always room for more and luckily they do spread quite easily. I always ensure a thorough shaking of the seedheed at the end of summer just in case. I expect the slugs feast on them when I am not looking but it makes me feel I am doing something to increase the yield.

We start off quite early in the spring with this beauty.

And going swiftly to this (which is actually not in our garden at all but in a local churchyard).

And stopping off by this on a VERY wet day. (This is one of ours and the poor bee did dry out eventually and live to tell the tale.)

And finally to this which I think is just as beautiful in its own way and very photogenic. I also have a passion for seedheads and alliums are particularly fine. I think I can feel an allium drawing coming on...!

I found the intriguing work of Zoe Rubens whilst I was looking for someone else on the Internet. I was amazed at her talent at both printmaking and ceramic and metal sculpture and altered art. She has developed her own techniques and produces very distinctive and quite complex work. Zoe works from a studio in East Anglia. She has a website here and also a very comprehensive display of her work on her Flickr site here. Well worth a visit.

The Lioness Tamer's Tea Party

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Angel In The Bath Etching

These gorgeous ceramic sculptures were created by the very talented Elya Yalonetski who studied ceramics in Russia before moving to Israel, Moscow and Berlin. I find her work enormously appealing because she likes to sculpt similar subjects to the ones I like to paint and draw ie. angels and ladies with birds on their heads. Her work is whimsical and quirky but beautifully detailed. Elya has an Etsy shop here and you can find lots more of her ceramic delights on the Abramtsevo site here and also on Flickr here.

Blog Anniversary Giveaway Winners

The winners of my first anniversary blog giveaway are Pamela of From The House of Edward blog, Dolores from True Blue Canadian blog and Robyn from Art Propelled. If you could let me know your mail addresses ladies I will send the prints asap.

This is a digital piece entitled "The Place of Dancing". It was from the title of a song I heard a while back and liked.

I must say a big thank you to Caroline for this great blog award I received a little while ago. Pop over and have a peek at her lovely blog at Caroline's Studio and say hello. I have a very healthy clutch of awards now from some great bloggers.

I had a nice little sea poem to post with this pen and ink drawing but in the end it wasn't applicable. It mentioned ships and my little boat is anything but. This is called "Safe Harbour".

This is a pen and ink drawing with digital colouring. Originally I was going to keep it all black and white but a tiny bit of colour crept in - like it does.

The cherry blossom is in full bloom locally and looks fabulous. So pretty when the sun is shining on it which it has a lot lately. I think summer has come early. I noticed today that another favourite of mine, the lilac, is out. Such a plentitude of flowers in spring.

Four lovely linocut prints by Robert Taverner who died in 2004 after 50 years as a printmaker. There is a lovely collection of his prints here.

Pollarded Trees and Houses

Pony and Paddock

Cottages and Reeds

Flint Barn

I really like these beautiful, contemporary sculptures by Australian, Sally Curry. So simple with lovely textures. Sally handbuilds her figures using earthenware terracotta. You can find a lovely display of her work at The Handmark Gallery.

One World

Gift From Crete

Flora

I have just discovered another treat from Mark Hearld. This is called St. Paul's Pigeons and is a collage. Love the bright colours. Pigeons are such common and humble birds but some artists have the ability to make them appear special, and Mark Hearld is one of them.

These little sculptures are delightful. I love the colour combination of the turquoise and yellow animal. They are by Allen and Mary Dee Dodge and they produce lots of interesting sculptures and figurines which can found on their website here.

The lovely images below were created by Suffok painter and printmaker Penny Bhadresa. She uses mainly linocut techniques but also collage, mixed media, acrylic and watercolour. Her subject matter reflects her love of nature, landscape and architecture. Her style is bold, colourful and graphic and she imbues her work with lots of shapes, texture and patterns. I love stylised art and I find her work very compelling. The hares particularly seem to have a sense of myth about them. She is a very successful artist and can be found in many galleries, among them St. Judes Gallery and Cambridgegallery. Penny's own website can be found here. The two acrylic paintings were from an article about Penny in "The Artist" magazine in 2004.

Harvest Hares

When The Boat Comes In

The Wild One

The Boxers

Guinea Fowl (Acrylic)

Snow Sprinter

Apples and Pears

Snow Fowl

Black Hens (Acrylic)

I decided to visit our local car boot sale as it was a lovely spring morning. I have watched as this boot sale has grown over the years from just a few stalls to a whole field full and it is now one of the most popular ones in the area. This sale is very organised as all the stalls are in neat rows which make it easy to know where you have been. Occasionally you can come across an absolute gem for next to nothing but most of the stuff is, frankly, tat. There seems to be a huge market for other peoples' tat. It makes me smile to see what dreadful things people have given house room to. I wish I could have taken some photos for you but I thought that might be frowned upon. A couple of classics were the dachshund crudely made of straw with bits of string tied at strategic points to stop the animal falling apart, and the huge pink metal flamingo with a light attached to the body like a huge, walking lamp. Just a couple of items that should have been consigned to the rubbish tip many moons ago. Did I buy anything?...well yes I did. Three brand new little glasses for 60p (ours keep getting broken) and a DVD of Pan's Labyrinth for £2. It is a wonderfully bizarre, creepy film with very dark undertones. Definitely not your average fairy tale. I am very satisfied with my purchases today.