It Rained On My Parade

This is a digital drawing called The Magic Land. A bit of a colour extravaganza really, but would definitely be noticed in a crowd. I don't know why blogger makes digital art look blotchy. This drawing took hours and there is definitely not a blotch in sight.

This is the preliminary sketch of The Magical Land. I didn't change the initial design as much as I usually do.

This is a digital image and as you can I wasn't quite ready to leave last week's fritillaries. This is the first time I have ever drawn a rabbit. I found the feet quite tricky.

The two images below are by artist Alexey Terenin. He grew up in Prague and was educated in Moscow. His work is very contemporary and strongly narrative and he has exhibited all over the world. I find his art visually beautiful, fascinating and intriguing. He has an extensive display of his work on his website here and if you want to see more of his art don't forget to check the gallery and the archive. I particularly love his Bridge Made Of Wings below.

A Bridge Made Of Wings Letter Delivery

I couldn't resist posting some photos of my brother and his partner's kittens. They are about 7 to 9 weeks old here and their eyes are just changing from blue to green. They are at the very active and into everything stage and also the scratching and biting stage which my poor, lacerated hands give testament to. They are little darlings though.

Abby in the basket

Mum Pixie with son Lickety

Poppy playing with dirty trainer laces Lickety

Poppy

I wandered into one of my favourite London shops to get out of the rain on Friday. Paperchase is a never-ending delight of a shop and you want to buy practically everything but I managed to hold myself back. They sell books on the top floor now and I found this little gem. It is by Elisabetta 'Kuky' Drudi and is a guide to designing and drawing patterns for fashion. It is full of wonderful pattern blocks and glorious colours and shapes. Below are three pages from the book. I am not going in for fashion design but patterns are a strong part of my artwork and this book will prove to be very inspiring I am sure.

These are some examples of the gorgeous designs from the book. Lots of complex patterns and colour combinations

I found a wonderful textile artist called Elizabeth Cook who produced the lovely items shown below. She creates eco friendly home furnishings made from felted, recycled wool and reclaimed fabrics. The items are then appliqued with gorgeous leaf designs. I think her work is simple, stylish and stunning (a nice bit of alliteration there). Her website is also beautifully designed and easy to browse and can be found here. She has lots more designs like these.

These two greetings cards are by Andrew Pavitt for Art Angels. I love the stylised, printmaker style he has used. Lots of other lovely images by Andrew can be found on his website here.

This is a Kelly Hyatt card for Beaumonde. Kelly is very well represented at Paperchase and has some lovely designs on offer. I really like this stylised peacock.

The images below are all the work of artist Robert Kipniss. I think I have found someone who loves trees almost as much as I do. Robert Kipniss is a painter/printmaker who was born in America in 1931. His work is stylised and mostly monochromatic which enables you to appreciate his beautiful lines without distraction. There is a wonderfully haunting quality to his work and trees and landscape figure strongly. I love his work for its beautiful precision and simplicity. He uses the techniques of oil, lithography, drypoint, drawing and mezzotints. As you can imagine he is very well represented by galleries and on the Internet but the Weinstein Gallery here has a huge collection of his work and is well worth a visit.

Together

An Island In The Forest

Evening Figures

Far Away

Breezes ll

Winter

A Late Awakening

It rained on my parade. I had decided to visit the Hatfield Craft Fair on Friday which involves a journey into London by train and then another out to Hatfield. I reached London but it was cold and raining heavily so I decided to visit some favourite haunts there instead of making my way to Hatfield. Hatfield Craft Fair is held outside in huge marquees but it is very unpleasant and squidgy in wet weather (believe me I have done it). It is a wonderful place on a nice day with about eight huge marquees containing masses of lovely art and crafts. Apparently it is the largest event of its kind in Europe. It is held at the Tudor palace of Hatfield House - home to Elizabeth 1. You can wander in the estate grounds which contain many massive trees of four hundred years old and more. It is worth going just to see the trees. Anyway that is all neither here nor there because I didn't go!

50th Blog Post Giveaway

This giveaway is to celebrate my 50th blog post. I am giving away sets of eight handmade greetings cards to the lucky winners. There are one each of the four bird designs below and four of my white deer with trees design which I posted a couple of weeks ago. Go down the posts to the 2nd of November to find it. If you would like a chance of winning just leave a comment on this post before Sunday 30th November and I will put your name in the hat. If you are not a blogger you will need to let me know your email address.

These are the greetings cards for my giveaway. There are eight in total - four bird designs and four of the white deer design. All the cards are blank and will arrive with white envelopes and in cellophane wrappers.

I was trying for a dramatic costumed look with this drawing.

This image is called Victorian Necklace

I absolutely adore this wonderfully vibrant and stylised tapestry by Lilian Hill called Crested Birds. If I owned it it would have pride of place as a wall hanging where I could admire it every day.

Beautifully colourful tapestry called Sheep Among Flowers In A Meadow woven by Miriam Bawden The following artworks were all created by the multi-talented Mark Hearld and are a mixture of paintings, collages and linocuts.

This is my 50th blog post. Amazed that I have got this far really. I haven't actually been blogging for nearly a year because to start with I used to post several times a week. I gradually reduced it to weekly for convenience and time really. A weekly post suits me fine at the moment.

I have decided that my blog giveaway will be a set of eight handmade greetings cards featuring some of my new artwork and some of a previous piece from a couple of weeks ago which seemed quite popular. I had a lot of fun producing the four white bird designs but they took quite a long time. I hope whoever wins them will be pleased with their prize. I used to make a lot of handmade cards at one time but they do take quite a while as I print the image and then mount it on the cards. My computer printer isn't up to printing on stiff card so this is the only way I can do it.

I had a birthday lunch with three good friends the other day. It was quite a surprise, but a very welcome one. It took about 20 minutes to eat the meal and then 3 hours to gossip about all and sundry. We used to all work together at one time but three of us have gone on to other things. It was lovely to catch up on what everyone was doing and have a good laugh into the bargain. The world would be a duller place without friends.

My artist this week is the talented English artist Mark Hearld. He produces work via linocuts, collages, paintings and ceramics. He is inspired by the natural world and animals and birds play a large part in his work. He doesn't appear to have his own website but his work can be found at various sites including St Jude's Gallery, and The Yew Tree Gallery which shows some of his ceramics.

Birds, Carry Akroyd And More Birds...

A bird nesting in your tree hair can never be a bad thing. I like the poem but you might need to click on the image to enlarge it as the text is quite small here.

I like the idea of birds offering each other gifts as in this digital artwork

A very decorative pen and ink bird drawing

These five characters saw life originally as a pen and ink drawing which I decided to colour digitally but with a more retro palette than my normal one.

The following images are some of Carry Akroyd's beautiful paintings and prints.

A selection of greetings cards which are printed from original machine embroideries. Not sure if I can bear to part with them though.

The wooden heart is Elm and I couldn't resist it. Elm wood is becoming scarce in England now since all the elm trees were decimated in the 60s and 70s due to Dutch elm disease.

View over the Fingest valley. You can just see the church in the middle distance but you will see it more clearly if you click on the photo

Fingest Church where the cream teas will be held on Sunday

I had a lovely day out on Friday at a local craft show at a beautiful little village called Stonor. It is in a very steep and heavily wooded valley and is a wonderful place to be. I think it has a very special atmosphere and energy and apparently originally had a megalithic stone circle, the site of which is now occupied by a large mansion belonging to the Stonor family. They have occupied the house for over 800 years which must be something of a record. I took some great photos of the house but unfortunately I had the camera on the wrong setting and they were whited out. Anyway, trust me, it is a wonderful place.

The craft fair is always a joy, being very well organised and having a good variety of art and craftwork. It is held in huge marquees on the steep side of a hill, but I think they kindly make sure the cows and sheep haven't been in the field for some time prior to the fair. Could be very messy otherwise. I made some very nice (I think) purchases, two of which I am having sent to me by post so that should be something to look forward to. As usual I bought a variety of greetings cards, a few of which I have illustrated here.

On the way home I stopped off at another quintessential English village called Fingest. It is famous for having an 11th century double saddle-backed church, one of only two in the country. Unfortunately for me the chuch was locked but it is open this Sunday for cream teas in the churchyard. I have been lucky enough to sample these teas in the past and they are extremely good. People of other countries must think drinking tea and eating homemade cakes in a churchyard is a very English eccentricity and I have to agree, but it is really enjoyable. Lots of interesting gravestones to read while you are eating....lol

Artwise, I have included another favourite painter and printmaker called Carry Akroyd. She lives in rural Northamptonshire and has an enduring love of nature, animals and the countryside, as you can see if you take a look at her art. She works in several media including acrylics, watercolour, linocuts and etchings. Her work is vivid and very detailed. I have seen her originals in an exhibition in London and they are gorgeous close up. Her website is a joy and can be found here. Well worth investigating.

I have also been busy with a couple of digital drawings and two pen and ink drawings. I particularly like my lady with the bird in her tree hairdo. I thought I would add a little poem which seemed to suit the picture. I have only just noticed that all my work this week contains birds. What would I do without them?

Finally thanks to the lovely lady who added me to her page on the StumbleUpon website. I got masses of hits for this blog and also my website.