Ceramic Figures and Stripes

This is a digital drawing called Dreaming In Stripes. I have drawn quite a few stripey artworks lately so I will probably have a rest from them. I do like stripes though...!

It has been a while since I posted a quirky drawing so here it is. Balancing On Buttons.

A little bit out of season but this is Winter Fox in ink and watercolour

Does anyone else stockpile greetings cards to keep handy in case of necessity? I have a wonderful collection but unfortunately I like most of them too much to part with them. So, a large collection of cards but only about a fifth of them available for sending to people. My two latest cards are both by Canns Down Press from their Royal Academy range but they do lots of other cards in other ranges. You can find their site here.

Sussex Landscape by Eric Ravilious

Bird's Nest Pattern by Edward Bawden

Harking back to Waterperry; they have some lovely statues in the gardens and these are two of my favourites. Miranda from Shakespeare's The Tempest is below. She resides at one end of the long pond and was sculpted by Tanya Russel. She is well liked by the local spiders judging by the webs on the detail picture.

Lamp of Wisdom by Nathan David. This lovely girl is holding court in the formal garden.

Another lucky charity bookshop find recently was the embroidery book by Verina Warren below. Verina Warren is one of the most talented textile artists in the UK. I have met her at shows and seen her work first hand and it is fabulous. Photos could never do it justice. She paints her backgrounds and then stitches into them to create beautiful textiles. She has a wonderful sense of colour and design. I was pleased to find her book, which, although written in the mid-80s is still very interesting and applicable today. She shows lots of ways in which natural surroundings can be used for contemporary design and embroidery. The book is published by Batsford and can be found here at Amazon UK. But, amazingly enough, I see there are several copies for £0.01. That is even better than my charity shop find. Aren't Amazon amazing for finding out of date book bargains? Verina has a lovely website here with lots of images of her stunning textiles.

Pages from Landscape In Embroidery

Embroidered textiles by Verina Warren.

Dorset Hills

Daisy Field

Music Of The Wind

Has anyone else got a passion for alliums? I think they are absolutely gorgeous flowers. Strange that they are related to the very humble onion. We have quite a few in our garden but there is always room for more and luckily they do spread quite easily. I always ensure a thorough shaking of the seedheed at the end of summer just in case. I expect the slugs feast on them when I am not looking but it makes me feel I am doing something to increase the yield.

We start off quite early in the spring with this beauty.

And going swiftly to this (which is actually not in our garden at all but in a local churchyard).

And stopping off by this on a VERY wet day. (This is one of ours and the poor bee did dry out eventually and live to tell the tale.)

And finally to this which I think is just as beautiful in its own way and very photogenic. I also have a passion for seedheads and alliums are particularly fine. I think I can feel an allium drawing coming on...!

I found the intriguing work of Zoe Rubens whilst I was looking for someone else on the Internet. I was amazed at her talent at both printmaking and ceramic and metal sculpture and altered art. She has developed her own techniques and produces very distinctive and quite complex work. Zoe works from a studio in East Anglia. She has a website here and also a very comprehensive display of her work on her Flickr site here. Well worth a visit.

The Lioness Tamer's Tea Party

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

Angel In The Bath Etching

These gorgeous ceramic sculptures were created by the very talented Elya Yalonetski who studied ceramics in Russia before moving to Israel, Moscow and Berlin. I find her work enormously appealing because she likes to sculpt similar subjects to the ones I like to paint and draw ie. angels and ladies with birds on their heads. Her work is whimsical and quirky but beautifully detailed. Elya has an Etsy shop here and you can find lots more of her ceramic delights on the Abramtsevo site here and also on Flickr here.

Charity Shops And Cockerels

Ths is called "Cockerels Amongst The Seedhead" and is a digitally coloured drawing. You may notice that these seed heads are the same ones as the central panel of the garden at midnight picture below. I liked them so much I thought I would give them another outing.

This is a pen and ink drawing which I dug out of my sketchbook and redid properly. I cut out a cardboard leaf to draw around to create the shapes. I would never have been able to get them so perfect otherwise.

This started out life as a brightly coloured digital drawing which I wasn't happy with. I had a fiddle with it in gradients in PS which I haven't got a clue how to use. After a few colour changes I got this one which I thought was quite quirky. It is called "In The Garden At Midnight".

This is a quick pen and ink drawing called The Scarlett Sash.

If you enjoy textile sculptures you will probably enjoy this one. Pod by Bird Ross is made from vintage silk kimono and thread.

I think this wonderfully coloured image by Julie Barnes is very springlike not least due to the little lamb!

I want this quirky casserole dish by Kevin Warren. Love his geese.

I have long been an admirer of Vanessa Pooley's beautiful sculptures. I particularly like this "Tiny Mother and Child" artwork for the material she has cast it in. She creates lots of differents sculptures but I think her mother and child ones are really lovely. It would be wonderful to own one. I think they are very tactile. She has a very informative and extensive website here.

Spring is literally a week away now - the 21st of March is the first day of spring. I really enjoy the profusion of beautiful flowers that come into bloom in spring. These ceanothus belong to the people whose garden backs onto ours, but there bush is so huge that it spills over the fence and we can enjoy it too.

Can't wait for one of my favourite flowers - the allium - to come into bloom. We have lots in the garden but these beauties were in the grounds of a nearby church.

This narcissus is in the grounds of a local cemetery which has wonderful fruit blossom trees and masses of bluebells. More of that at a later date.

Love these delicious images by Pauline Hughes. Pauline is a sculptural artist who also creates wall art. Her website is here.

I really enjoy Sir Terry Frost's colourful images. I haven't seen this egg one before though.

James Campbell is a ceramic artist and painter. He was born in Scotland and was brought up there and in Wales where he now lives. His work is a combination of drawing/painting and creating ceramics to which he applies his very distinctive artwork. I love his painted images of simple, moody landscapes and his wonderfully stylised crows. His work is more powerful I think because it is fairly minimalist. He attributes his work to the beauty of those two places where he grew up. The Stour Gallery has a large display of his work.

Night Journey-Standing Stone

Wintersun Ceramic

Encircling Hill 2

Landfall

Misty Morning

Night Journeys-The Lake

Night Landscape Ceramic

Night Journeys-The Tower

The Encircling Hill Ceramic

The Old Straight Track

Wintersun ceramic bowl

Wiltshire Wane

Aren't charity shops amazing? I am sure I am not the only one to think so. What ever did we do before the first charity shops really made an impact in the high street. A lot of people complain that our streets are full of charity shops these days and they are taking the business away from the "proper" shops. I suppose in some ways they do just that. There are so many good quality M & S items available in charity shops that M&S must notice the drop in their sales to some extent. Those who try to live greener lives appreciate the chance to buy "recycled" items which cannot be a bad thing. I suppose like everything else there are pros and cons.

I know for a fact that I have had access to far more interesting and originally expensive books than I would have been able to purchase new. I am constantly amazed by the quality of items people give away. I have come across books originally costing £30 to £35 and even more and sometimes they have only been published that year. It is almost true to say that if you really want something and don't mind waiting, eventually it will turn up in a charity shop. That is very true of some of my books. I have purchased all my Kaffe Fassett books second hand. You can often buy books that are now out of print too. Thank goodness for people having the urge to declutter their lives. There are even some charity shops that cater just for books...ah bliss.