Squirrel Mischief

The artwork is Christmas related this week. I am definitely getting into the Christmas mode now. The cards are almost finished and my own are waiting to be written and posted before we have another national postal strike!!!

This is called "Unexpected" for obvious reasons. Not sure if there is a man in the background or whether the skimmer wants a kiss under the mistletoe.

A very stylised partridge in a pear tree.

This is a quick digital sketch I did last Christmas as a response to seeing a TV programme where one of the characters got fed up with all the Christmas razzmatazz. I think quite a few people look like this at the end of the festive period.

Now for some childrens' illustrations. I love browsing the charity shops for childrens' books. They are extremely cheap and have some amazing illustrations. This is from the book "The Winter Hedgehog" by Ann and Reg Cartwright. I really like the colour palatte they have used here and that gorgeous purple gallinule. This is from a blog called Childrens' Fantasy Illustrations which you can find here.

Alice and Martin Provensen are American artists who illustrated childrens' books in the main. They worked together to produce some amazing artwork and I have posted some examples below. They were a married couple and I believe she is still alive although he died in the 80s.

This is the Flickr site here where you can find the Alice and Martin Provensen group.

A book illustrated by the Provensens uploaded to Flickr by john.red who can be found here.

An illustration from Karen's Opposites illustrated by the Provensens. This is from Flickr user art.crazed who can be found here.

The cover of the childrens' book illustrated by the Provensens. I love those hens.

An illustration from The First Noel by the Provensens. You can see all the illustrations here on wardomatic blogspot.

The woods don't look like this anymore. Most of the leaves have dropped now with the incredible gales we have had for the past week. It was great looking at and walking over carpets of leaves though.

I love this necklace by Etsy seller klmjewelry. You can find her shop here. She has some lovely items. This reminds me of the tiny coloured sweets we had as children.

I was out walking in local woodland a couple of days ago and spied this cute fellow. Not a brilliant photo but he was high up in the tree. I spotted lots of squirrels scampering around in the wood. They are very easy to spot when the trees are bare of foliage.

I was quite surprised to see him start munching on the tree bark. Then I noticed the bare patches of exposed wood and realised that he, or his countless relatives, had been chewing on this tree for quite a while. I looked around and there were quite a few trees with similar bare patches.

Apparently they strip the bark to get at the sweet sap underneath but sadly leave the tree exposed to infections and possible death over a period of time. They prefer some trees to others. I am not sure what species this one is.

He seemed to be saying to me "I can eat all the bark off this tree and you cannot do anything about it...hahah". I knew squirrels could be very destructive but hadn't witnessed it first hand before. Grey squirrels get a bad press but some of it seems deserved. I hate to see trees being damaged.

I found the website of textile artist Pamela Allen quite by chance when I was looking for something else. I love her bright, contemporary quilts. They are so full of life, colour and texture. Her website is full of lots of lovely fibrey things to look at here. (You will need to click on the pictures to enlarge them to get more of the detail.)

Getting My Ducks In A Row

Wanna Bite?

3 Guinea Fowl

Some of you may be familiar with the work of artist and ceramicist Claire Loder because she has recently been seen at Origin. This is the two week contemporary craft show at Somerset House which is organised by the Crafts Council. I used to go when it was in Chelsea but I haven't visited since it has relocated. I think I will have to start visiting again.

Claire produces amazingly quirky ceramic heads and faces. She is interested in the stories faces tell and is inspired by naive and outsider art. She has a website here and a very interesting blog here with lots of her work displayed.

She's Sunny

Her Hair

Her paintings can be seen here at the Brownston Gallery in Devon.

The Great Unknown

Shelter

Absolutely love this very graphic peacock wall decal by Sally Boyle. Lovely colours and design. Sally is a graphic artist and can be found here on Etsy.

Oxaca (pronounced Wa HAH ka) is one of Mexico's poorest states but it has a folk art tradition to rival anywhere. The woodcarving men and women of the area are famous for their beautiful and exquisitely painted carvings of animals, birds and people. They are deliciously humourous and quirky and are very collectable worldwide. The book below is one I have had for many years and is full of great illustrations of the art.

Mermaids - Avelino Perez

Turkey - Moises Jiminez

The beautiful Oxacan carvings below are from the Flickr site of Teyacapan who has some amazing Mexican artifacts, pottery and textiles. Well worth a look. Also lots more of these carvings to be seen here on her site.

Virgen de Soledad

Blue Bat

Blue Eyed Fox

Oxacan Jack Rabbit

Whimsical And Quirky

This is a digital drawing entitled "Escape From The Merry Go Round". Looks much better if you enlarge it.

While I was in London last week I visited the London Graphic Centre at Covent Garden and stocked up on some new pens. There are some Edding pens now which I haven't come across before. They are ultra fine (0.1mm) nibs and are in green, blue and red ink. I already have a very fine brown ink pen which I rather like. I also purchased a couple of extremely fine pencils in a pen casing which have replaceable graphite cores which you can change as and when. They are also lovely to work with.

These are the two whimsical drawings I produced using my new pens. It is very nice to work with ultra fine coloured pens instead of black all the time.

Green and Purple Bird - I like this colour combination and have used it quite a lot in my artwork.

Magenta Sundress (and an unusual hat)

Romeo and Juliette by Alex Malik

Flora Girl by Andrey Aranyshev

You may remember that I mentioned a quilt book called 2003 Masterpieces by Husqvarna Viking which I found in a charity shop a while back. It has some gorgeous quilts in it and I decided to post these three because of their beautiful colours and complex designs.

Walks In The Woods - Frieda Anderson

The Hard Core - Tally Ronly-Riklis

Feast of Fools 11 - Scott A Murkin

Some of you may remember that I featured the wonderful paintings and ceramics of artist Este MacLeod back on 8 November last year. She contacted me recently to say that she now has her own blog. You can find it here. It is a very interesting combination of her latest works and peeks behind the scenes into her world of art and is well worth a browse. Also if you click on the web links at the top of her blog it takes you to her other site with oodles of lovely paintings and ceramics. Este will also be exhibiting here in April/May 2009. This image below is one of her works.

The ceramics below are the work of Irish sculptor Christy Keeney. He sculpts mainly figurative pieces and heads. I would love to own one of these beauties. Christy has a website here but if you search on Google you will find lots of his work in galleries.

About nine years ago or so I visited Priors, a wonderful contemporary art and craft gallery in Barnard's Castle in County Durham. Visiting these sorts of establishments is one of my hobbies and is something I don't get to do often enough. I think I could create a career out of it given the opportunity. Anyway, Priors was (it is sadly no more) a tiny place but crammed full of gorgeous things. I bought three lovely handmade cards there by David England who is a printmaker. The cards are actually original linocuts on handmade paper in a wonderful contemporary graphic style. They were obviously made to be sent to someone but these are definitely remaining with me. I don't think he even does these anymore. I don't think they cost very much at the time either.

Frans Wesselman is the creator of fascinating art. He grew up in Holland and in 1979 came to England and worked as a painter/printmaker. On seeing the beautiful "Prisoners of Conscience" window in Salisbury Cathedral he decided to try his hand at creating stained glass. His style of art and subject matter is one I really enjoy. His work whether in painting, printmaking or stained glass is very narrative and imaginative. He is a great storyteller in images. He exhibits his work widely and is extremely popular and well recognised.

You can find out more about Frans Wesselman here. This is his own website here and you see masses of wonderful images at this website here.

All the images below are the work of Frans Wesselman.

Birds

Trixie

Fishing

Bird In Hand

Fishing (Coloured)

Islanders 11

Mermaid

Watering Pig

Rider

Shepherd And His Love White Deer

I have been quite poorly this week, due I think, to someone sneezing in my vicinity at the Byzantium Exhibition. Did you know that a sneeze can travel up to 12 feet. If anyone sneezes near me normally I hold my breath until I am out of their area but that was impossible this time. We were all in a smallish hall and it was so crowded there was nowhere to go. I now have a very nasty cold virus and a horrible cough and constant headache. I am blaming that person anyway although I might have caught the virus anywhere at any time. I haven't really felt like drawing either which is quite unlike me, but I have produced a few pieces and of course it is never difficult to find something amazing on the web.