Primavera....A Little Early

Anyone who reads this blog regularly will recognise this from the pen and ink drawing that I originally posted a couple of weeks ago. It has taken forever to colour on the computer but it is finally finished and is quite pleasing. It is called Primavera which is Italian for spring. Lots of leaves this week.

I am very pleased with this image as it turned out better than I had expected. I used my 85 year old mum as a model for the hands holding the apron. It is pen and ink with digital colouring and is called Gathering the windfalls.

I decided to go a bit mad with the hair here but I like it. A very elegant lady indeed.

Can't possibly have a blog post without a tree somewhere

Just a practice drawing of long hair

The following images are of Kirsten Glasbrook's tapestries, a page from her book and the front page of the book. I hope you enjoy looking at them.

It's been a bit of a "pickly" week, this week. Not quite sure why but lots of things seem to have gone awry for some reason. Even simple things that should have been easy had their own particular gremlins. Drawings that should have practically drawn themselves have worked out quiet ways to be awkward and not do what I wanted them to do. Sometimes I think they must have a life of their own.....no, not really but it sometimes feels that way. I often start out drawing something in a sketch book and I have a good idea of what I want it to look like but during the process of making it into a "proper" drawing, something happens and it goes off in a different and unexpected direction. Sometimes these are good and sometimes they are completely wrong and the picture ends up in the bin and I have to start again. I am sure all artists and craftspeople have much the same problems. Something to do with the creative process we are told: whatever that may be.

One incredibly useful tool, of course, is the computer. Oh the hours it saves me. I can create an image and whereas in the past I would ponder over what to do next, nowadays I just have to scan the image into photoshop and fiddle with it to my heart's content. When I have decided, I can go back to the original and know that I am not going to ruin it. Some people would say it takes away the spontaneity but who cares about that, if the end product is the best image possible, and who can spell spontaneity anyway. I can, but only because I have just checked with the computer on answers.com. I was very resistant to computers for many years but once I had one the addiction started. They make life so much easier that I wonder how anyone can manage without one.

Talking of computers, I am very upset to find out that my favourite website "Statcounter" has disappeared into thin air. I love checking my blog stats to see who has been for a visit and even nicer, who keeps returning. I am statless at the moment but hopefully that will soon be sorted out by dint of Google Analytics. Hopefully Statcounter is only having a bit of a glitch and will return soon. Then I will have two websites to check my stats with....hurrah. Oh and thanks to my brother and his partner Lesley for very valuable computer assistance without which I would be in a very deep muddy hole with steep slippery sides.

My featured artist/craftsperson this week is actually someone I have met. She is a Danish tapestry weaver called Kirsten Glasbrook and she creates the most wonderful pictorial tapestries. Her style is contemporary but with a folky twist and a definite hint of myths and legends. I met her when she was exhibiting at the Waterperry Art in Action show near Oxford a few years ago. She had transported a huge upright loom into the marquee and was showing people how she creates her work. I was hooked from then and when she produced her book on tapestry weaving I was probably one of her first customers. Her website is well worth a look - Kirsten Glasbrook. I have included several of her lovely tapestries and if I came into money I would definitely buy one. I cannot weave by the way.

Blues, turquoises and golds and a lovely English village

This painting is entitled "Golden Hen In The Orchard"

This little painting is entitled "Your Tree Or Mine?"

This is the preliminary watercolour sketch of my hen. Bit of an odd shape I know.

A decorated and stylised bird from my sketchbook

Stained glass window to the Caldicott family. Click photo to enlarge.

Cottage on the village green at Warborough

A village lane in Warborough

I actually put paint to paper this week and did a couple of little watercolours. One is of a golden hen in an orchard - very stylised as is my style. The other one is of two little birds who are having a bit of a confrontation over whose tree it is. Both pictures share more or less the same limited palette of blues, turquoises and golden browns. A lovely combination and one of my favourites. I have also included a tiny little sketchy watercolour of the finished picture. It doesn't really bear much relationship to the finished article but then a sketch doesn't have to. I have often produced a sketch and when I start painting or drawing the finished picture, there are so many changes that it doesn't seem to be related at all. That is the beauty of art though - it is an ongoing process and you never know where inspiration will take you.

I visited some friends over the weekend with my brother and his partner. They took us to a lovely little village called Warborough in Oxfordshire. It was the quintessential English village and utterly delightful. After a lovely meal in the local pub we strolled around the outskirts of the village and visited the parish church. We even spotted a couple of lapwings in the fields trying to distract us from seeing their nest. They had nothing to fear from us though. Because of the recent rains we have had, everything looked beautifully fresh and green. I love this time of the year for that reason. I envied the villagers with their lovely thatched cottages and cricket green but then I realised that there is a price to pay for living in heaven. They are inundated with cars during the summer weekends because the area is so lovely and a great place for walking dogs. I found the place so inspirational that I returned home and started on my little artworks while I was in the mood.

The parish church had some beautiful stained glass windows which are a passion of mine. The quality of the colours in stained glass is much more intense than I have seen in any other media. The one is have posted here is relatively recent and records a local Warborough family. I just love the deep raspberry and turquoises of the robes. Wonderful.

I have also included a very decorative and stylised bird from my sketchbook. I am so into birds at the moment. We are having large numbers of them visiting the birdtable in the garden and the fat balls hanging on the tree stump. It is so lovely to see the young joining in too. My birds don't resemble any of them of course, but I do draw the occasional realistic bird as well which I will post at a later date.

Spring Muse and Inky Birds

Tree Doodles

Mute Swan Preening

Rooks In Winter

Grey Heron

Pink Tulips
Local lane

Narcissi

Spring is beautifully underway in England now and I am really enjoying the countryside and all the inspiration it provides. Everything seems so much fuller, fresher and more colourful in the spring after the starkness of winter. I have included a few spring photos to show you what I mean. We are lucky in England to be surrounded by so much rural beauty. We are having quite a wet spring this year and it is making everything quite green and fresh.

I was inspired to do a couple of new pen and ink pictures - one is the grey heron, a bird which is seen quite frequently in our locality, standing in shallow water and just waiting for some unsuspecting frog or fish to wander past. They look beautifully graceful flying with their long, long legs stretched out behind them. I drew the picture in the pointillist technique to show off the delicate grey feathers.

The other is a very decorative, four part, tree inking. Nothing special but I just liked the shapes and wanted to create different textures with the same motif. It was VERY vaguely supposed to resemble a palm tree but I don't think it ended up that way. At least unlike any palm I have ever seen.

Rooks are probably my favourite birds and always epitomise the English countryside for me. I love to hear their noisy cawing in spring, high up in the trees rearing their young and squabbling amongst themselves. My drawing is quite an old one of a rook in a winter setting and was one which I used for Christmas cards some years ago.

The last drawing is a swan inspired by one of my photographs. Swans are so beautiful that it is almost impossible to take a poor photograph of them. They always look so beautiful and graceful. I loved the way this one was ruffling his feathers and his beak was half hidden in the snowy down as he preened. I don't know why he is a he - just one of those things I suppose....LOL I need a bit of colour after all these monochrome pictures so I will have to get the paint box out again.

My linocut is still not ready to be revealed. I am having trouble with the inking process. Getting just the right amount of ink is very difficult: too much and it is blobby, too little and it is patchy. I am pleased with the actual linocut but that was the easy bit. Still, after a bit of trial and error I will have something worth showing hopefully.

PS The nicked and blistered fingers are just starting to recover now!