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!

Textiles and Linocuts

It is my first year Blogversary next week and I will be having a blog giveaway again. I will probably have three winners but I haven't created the prizes yet...ha ha. All will be revealed as they say...next week.

I got my paints out this week and had a dabble with watercolour. This turned out completely differently to how I planned but I like the result. If you have ever wondered what hides beneath tree roots, now you know. It is the "Spirit of Trees". The golden accents are from a wonderful gold leaf pen I bought from the stamping tent at a local craft fair. It cost an arm and a leg but is the best ink resembling gold that I have ever found.

This is a pen and ink drawing called "The Woman Who Planted Trees". I really enjoyed all the detail on this. I may decide to do some more versions with different women and different trees.

This is a closer look. The textured body of the tree is thousands of tiny circles.

This is my second attempt at a linocut. It is the best of quite a few tries. I find the cutting fairly straight forward but the inking up and printing very difficult. I always seem to have too much or too little ink. This is actually carved from one of those soft pink speedball pads which are wonderful to cut through (no cut fingers) but I don't suppose you can get as much detail as with the more rigid lino. Still, I don't think it is too bad for a beginner.

If you like finely detailed and complex images then this one by Georgian artist Nick Japaridze should appeal. His style is incredibly fine and the colours glow like jewels. He has a technique whereby he multi-layers oil paints. He has lots more like this on his website here.

I really like the colours in this contemporary image by Edward Vardanian named "The Eden".

Love this touch of vintage plate design with a folksy feel. This is a Norweigian plate and is from Etsy seller EyeCandi.

Some more delicious spring flowers. These are grape hyacinths.

I popped over to my brother and his partner Lesley's home today to see how the kitties are getting on. There are three of them but they are notoriously difficult to photograph. This is the only picture that came out reasonably. This kitten is cute perfection itself. I love his big feet and spotty belly.

Sheba is a very elegant and superior sort of cat with some awesome claws.

My mind has been turning to linocuts this week. You can see my effort at the top of this post. I had a good old browse on Etsy to see what other people were producing and found some lovely images.

These two images of crows are by artwellspring on Etsy and I absolutely love them. I love black birds anyway but they are so beautifully textured and very simple and graphic. Just what linocuts should be, although these are linocut and woodblock combined. I will just have to keep practising. It is a technique I find very enjoyable but the printing seems to be a bit difficult.

Another nice contemporary linocut over collage image by ciaobirdie on Etsy. I particularly like the palette she has chosen.

If you like black cats you may be tempted by blackcatsonly on Etsy. She has some lovely linocut images of cats and they are reasonably priced too. I love this one especially.

At one time I used to see a lot of Roger la Borde greetings cards around but I haven't seen any for ages until I spotted these two little gems in a local bookshop. If you want to see some more of their designs the website is here.

I found some lovely gift wrap by Caroline Gardner the other day. Her work is so gorgeous. This is Caroline's website here.

The following images are all tapestries and embroideries from some wonderful textile artists.

The following 5 beautiful hand stitched embroideries are by the Finish textile artist Riitta Liisa Haarvisto. These must have taken months to stich by hand but they are so lovely that it was well worth it.

This is Soul Birds by my favourite tapestry weaver Kirsten Glasbrook. You can find Kirsten's site here.

This tapestry called The Norns is by Faroese tapestry weaver Marianna Matras. It depicts the Nordic goddesses of fate who weave the fate of mankind at the foot of Yggdrasil, the world tree. It is a beautiful iconic piece - simple and graphic and is inspired by a painting by William Heinesen. The Norns would make a good subject for a drawing I think.

Beautiful tapestry by Inge Flierl who is a German tapestry weaver. You can see a few more of Inge's tapestries here.

Tapestry by Murray Gibson called Visitation. I love this piece, especially the central motif and the way it fades at the edges. You can find masses of Murray's lovely complex tapestries on his home page here.

Tapestry by Liza Collins. I love her bright, spontaneous, organic pieces.

Easter is with us once more and has brought in some wet and drizzly weather with it. Lovely word, drizzly and exactly describes that irritating, persistent light rain that is "neither nowt nor sumat" as they say up north. Apart from being an important Christian festival, it is also a time for families to do things together and I feel really sorry for all those people who have arranged family days out only to find that the weather is inclement to say the least. Nearly all Easter events take huge amounts of someone's time and effort to arrange and unless they are under cover, they can get ruined at the last minute. Such a shame.