Heather Ritchie

Still making Christmas cards. Time is fairly whizzing along now. We are in the middle of November already. I am sure November only started last week...I could be wrong but that is what it feels like. We have had lots of rain and gales lately and I am having to clear out the wet birdfood and dry the table every couple of days. After all what self respecting bird would want porridge?

I enjoyed drawing the deer in last week's post so I thought I would do a few more. To simplify things I have used the same image as one of the deer last week. I tried lots of variations of different colours and shades but I thought this one worked the best.

I also thought I would do a white background to see which I preferred. I like them both.

Matilda and Ruby

My featured artist this week is a very lovely lady and friend called Heather Ritchie. We first met years ago when staying at her B&B in Reeth, North Yorks. We had stayed the year before and Heather was away but her husband knew we were interested in arts and crafts and let us have a peek into her fascinating studio. We were inspired by all the wonderfully coloured rugs she had created just from strips of wool fabric. You can view more of her rugs here.

Heather is a very well known and respected rug maker and teacher and travels all over the world holding workshops and displaying and selling her rugs. She even made a lovely rug inspired by one of my paintings. The photos below cannot show the tiny details within the very large rugs and the wonderful shades of wool she uses which she dyes herself. She uses her local landscapes of Yorkshire and her daily life and memories to create the rugs. My brother's partner Lesley is in the process of writing a book about Heather's life in rugs which is to be published next year. Can't wait for that.

She has also started a not-for-profit organisation called Rug Aid which is dedicated to teaching blind people in The Gambia to create their own rag rugs and sell them to provide living funds. On the 21 November the organisation is holding a Rug Rave in which groups or single people can participate to either make their own rugs or raise money in other ways for the organisation. You can read about that on the website too.

Heather's Studio in Reeth

Guiding Light rug

Bearing Gifts rug showing Heather carrying her sheep

The Ha'penny Ferry Rug

Rug of Fleet, Heather's Dog

Christmas Eve Rug

These two lovely delicate etchings below are by printmaker Flora McLachlan. The images are very magical and fairytale-like and totally mysterious. I love her work. You can see more of it a quite a few places on the Internet including Art of Illustration, (you will have to go to the bottom of the page and enter Flora's name - sorry, I cannot link to the right page for some reason, but there are three pages to look at, here at Sanders of Oxford, and here at Artweeks Gallery.

The Flowering

The Wood Pool

So much lovely autumn scenery around at the moment. Our weather has been very changeable lately. We have had lots of mists, a few frosts and now we are being battered by gale force winds and rain which is all coming from the south. I expect there will be far fewer leaves on the trees after this weekend.

If you like your ceramics quirky with wildlife on them you cannot get better than Anna Lambert. Anna is an English ceramacist living in Yorkshire who has work in many galleries and craft shops. She has a huge display of her work here at the Junction Workshop. The cockerel below is actually a tureen and has feathers for a ladle. Intriguing.

Bowl With Field Birds

Oat Jar With Herring Gull

Cockerel Tureen

Have you ever noticed what long eyelashes cows and horses have. Seems a little unfair really when they are not the least bothered about what they look like. You will need to click on the pictures to see them in more detail.

Anne Anderson is a Northern Irish artist and illustrator who now works mostly in printmaking. You can find more examples of Anne's beautiful work here at Artzyard Gallery, here at Seacourt Print workshop and here you will find a site called No Alibis which is producing a limited edition book called "The Book of Lost Things" which she is illustrating.The three lovely images below are her work.

Love Birds Collograph

Prevailing Wind

Scrabo Through The Window

I am always on the lookout for interesting and attractive cards. Christmas cards always appeal to me if they feature partridges in pear trees. These were buy one, get one free, so I got a couple of each design.

I came across a poetry book in a charity shop the other day and it is one I have wanted for a while. It is A Shropshire Lad by AE Housman. This particular copy is very special because it is illustrated by one of my favourite wood engravers - Agnes Miller Parker. Parker was Scottish and quite famous for her book illustrations. Her work is so beautifully elegant and rhythmic with well defined textures.

This is a well-known but very beautiful poem of Housman's. If you click on the image you can see it large enough to read. Housman was an English classical scholar who died in 1936.

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.