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.

Blog Giveaway Winner - Me (thanks Sandy) and The Knitting and Stitching Show

This image relates to the poem called The Wandering Aenghus by William Butler Yeats. I have always liked this poem and the last few lines are very famous.

I like the graphic quality of this painting. I love stripes in any colours. Perhaps it is a bit too much but it is quite eye catching and I don't think you can ever go wrong with flowers.

I watched a DVD called An American Haunting the other night and the main character was a young lady in 1800's Minnesota called Betsy Bell. She had quite a sad tale to tell, and a scary one. I was particularly interested in her lovely blue coat and dress ensemble. This is a near approximation of it although it would look a lot better coloured.

I thought this one would make quite a nice Christmas card design. The leaf is supposed to be a holly leaf. I like the minimal colour of this one - quite unusual for me.

The following are all photos from the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in London. Sorry about the lighting in some of the shots but there is very little natural light in the place and flash never looks as good as natural daylight. The pictures can be enlarged to see more detail if you click on them. If you go here you can read all about the exhibitors in the Show.

I love this subtly coloured quilt and could quite happily have taken it home with me.

This wool stand is always very popular. I think some people buy enough wool to last them until the next show.

I loved this gorgeous patchwork quilt

Brightly coloured embroidery

Detail of bird embroidery

Display of children's clothing

John Allen designs carpets for the wall and also produces etchings and other artwork. The designs he displayed at the show were all connected to Nepal and Nepalese culture and landscape. The colours are brilliant and the shapes beautifully graphic. He has a wonderful sense of colour. He actually works in collaboration with Tibetan weavers who interpret his designs. Go here for a look at his lovely website.

John Allen colourful carpet design

John Allen carpet

John Allen produces carpets for the wall and they are amazing designs like this one.

A wall display of some of Raymond Honeyman's work. His attention to detail is amazing.

Raymond Honeyman design of flowery fan for Ehrman tapestries. This is actually a painting made up of tiny dots of colour in the exact same places where you would do the stitch of the wool tapestry. He adores pattern and must take hundreds of hours to create these works of art.

This is a view of a wool stand selling cardi's and jumpers. There were lots of stands selling hand knitted woolies and they were all to die for.

Another view of the spectacular patchwork. Click on the photo to get a better look.

The Embroidery Guild stand had a wonderful patchwork quilt, only part of which is shown here. Apparently the various groups over the country were given their colours to work and when they were all completed the patchwork was assembled.

This is Sarah Boccaccini Meadows who is a young textiles graduate with a lovely smile. She had some beautiful and complex garments on her stand and was really thrilled to be at the Exhibition.

Last week I paid my yearly visit to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace in London. It is a fabulous day out at a wonderful venue. Ally Pally as it is fondly known stands very high above London and a marvellous view of the capital can be had on a clear day. Inside great wonders were beheld. It is an extravaganza of all things textile, stitchy, and art and crafty and appeals to a huge audience, mostly women, as can be expected.

I travelled up to London by coach which is a service dedicated to the serious stitch enthusiast. It is so much easier and more comfortable than going by train. We had about 6 hours at the exhibition and in the time available I did not get to see all of it!

I have included quite a few shots of various stands in the exhibition and I explain each photo as I go along. There were a number of great book stands including the Embroidery Guild stand which is always worth an hour or two's perusal. All the books were art and craft and textile orientated and it is always a good place to get the newest books on the market. I must confess to buying a "couple" of books but I will tell you about those in another post. By the time I returned home I was exhausted but happy and very inspired by what I had seen. There is so much incredible talent in the world of textiles. I now have to go for a year before I can do the whole thing again.

Another lovely thing which has happened since my last post, is winning the giveaway on Sandy Mastroni's Blog. Sandy is a great artist who produces really intriguing and enchanting images of ladies and animals, particularly cats. Her giveaway was for a lovely kitty painting and if you have a look at blog post October 9th you will see my name being drawn by Jerry. I am really looking forward to receiving my kitty picture and would like to thank Sandy very much for giving me the opportunity. She also has a great Etsy shop at http://www.sandymastroni.etsy.com/ so I recommend you go and take a look.

This is the second giveaway I have won. The first was for a lovely woolly scarf from Phyllis which I have already put to good use as we have had some very chilly days this autumn.

Enough said for this post. I will let the photos speak for themselves.

Summer Flowers and Work In Progress

In progress - The Garden of the Aliums

Designs for cards

A small pen and ink goose sketch

My watercolour palette

I have been out and about in the countryside lately photographing all the wonderful flowers around at this time. So much colour and inspiration and I haven't done one, single flower picture lately. Something I will definitely have to put right soon. The only problem with flower photography is that it has to be a very still day and we don't seem to have many of those in England recently. We seem to have lots more windy days than we ever did before. I wonder if it is a sign of global warming.

Artwise, I am in the process of drawing another female figure in pen and ink. You can take a peek at her above. This picture is to be entitled Garden of the Aliums because they are my favourite flowers. So far I have only done her head with a bird on top but the bird will be holding an alium on a stem and there will be several aliums growing around her. Aliums are quite tricky for pen and ink because the tiny stars are so very close together, so mine will definitely be stylised aliums. Nothing wrong with a bit of stylising I say....lol.

I have also enclosed a few other pictures of random art and a view of my colour palette set out on paper - very useful when I am wondering what colours I have available. I have more colours than this but these are the most useful ones.

The little folky animals holding up the pieces of artwork will get a makeover in the not too distant future also. They are looking a bit grubby now and I fancy giving them a lick of bright colour. That reminds me I have three wooden cats that need painting too.......!