Last Post Till The New Year - Happy Christmas Everyone

Time to wish all my friends and readers a very Happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year.


This is called Co-ordinating Leaf Bird for obvious reasons.

This is a picture I painted in watercolour when I first started my blog but I have since altered it and changed it to digital colour and I think it has improved it a lot.

This piece is called Contemplating A Sunflower.

A simple, sweet little white cat among flowers.

One of the Victorian monumental angels I enjoy photographing with a tiny touch of Photoshop

The following Christmas decorations (except for the ceramic ladies) are all ones that I made about 20 years ago. I used to have time to make things in those days.

I cannot take credit for these cuties. I found them in a shop a few years ago. They were surprisingly inexpensive. I love the little partridge and the goose. The ladies even have long, gold metallic hair.

These three pictures are of ordinary metal bangles which I have wrapped around with wool (hidden) then very thick, glittery tape and finally various coloured ribbons. The ribbons are wrapped so that the glittery tape is visible in some cases. I then sewed on co-ordinating tiny glass beads and star sequins. They also need a piece of ribbon to hang them up with. The best bangles are the childrens sized ones as they look very dinky. They look lovely suspended from the Christmas tree. The middle picture is of two tiny bangles intersected. You have to hold them in position as you wrap them.

These decorations are simply walnuts which have been opened up and the nuts eaten (very important). The outside is sprayed with gold paint and various items are laid inside one shell. In this case I have used gold beads threaded on wire, strung glass beads, pine cones, ribbons and everlasting flowers, but there are many other things you could use. The trick is to neatly arrange the items whilst at the same time glueing the edges of the walnuts together. The amazing thing is that the dried everlasting flowers have lasted so many years being handled without falling apart. Don't forget to add a little piece of gold thread to hang them from the tree.

These are felt stars filled with fibre and stitched around with very wide, glittery thread and sequins applied with transparent thread. I had great fun making these in different colours.

The following images are the artwork of Welsh artist Dai (David) Harding and his extensive website can be found here.

Time for the last blog post of the year as I won't have time to blog till after the New Year. Christmas is busy enough as it is without extras added. I think I have finally managed to get all my Christmas letters and cards posted and the presents wrapped. What a rush it has been. But it doesn't have to be if only I could arrange my time better. I promise myself every year that this time I will start the preparations earlier and get everything completed before the last week before Christmas, but everytime I am foiled...by time, or rather, lack of it.

Anyway, enough of that. I thought I would post a few pictures of my "crafty werks" this time. I used to make lots of things once upon a time and I really enjoyed the creative process. These are mostly Christmas decorations which I made for a hospital bazaar many moons ago. If fact they are over 20 years old but they only make a brief appearance at Christmas so that is probably why they are still in good nick.

My artist this week is Dai (or David) Harding. He is a Welsh artist with an amazing talent for different styles of art. You can visit his website here. I don't think I have ever seen a website with so many images on it. A lot of his work is semi-abstract or contemporary. His figurative work has a primal, mythic quality. I particularly like his colourful landscapes. Definitely landscapes of the imagination. I also enjoy the pieces of text he combines with the artwork. He has a collection of very diverse commercial styles as well. A very talented and adaptable artist.

Christmas Is Fast Approaching

This is the coloured version of my pen and ink drawing posted last week. It didn't take too long to colour either. Not sure why blogger is making it blurred. You may need to click on it for a larger version to see it better.

I love the old retro cloche hats of the 30s. I wish they were still popular today. These two are definitely over-the-top but I think the idea is ok.

This is just a quick fantasy drawing I did today. I love these colours and may use them for other pictures. This piece is entitled The Headdress.

This is another Christmas card design using the same tree I posted previously under a different guise. I am not too sure whether the gold star looks right but otherwise I think it is quite a pretty image. This is an actual London tree.

This is the finished Christmas card which I am using for my brother's cards this year. Quite minimal but wintry I hope.

Lovely contemporary image of deer by Caroline Gardner cards. Lovely modern palette.

This was a previous Christmas card from Caroline Gardner cards but far too nice to send to anyone...lol.

This is an Oxfam Christmas 2008 card. Not sure who the designer is but it is beautifully detailed and full of inspiration for those of us who love trees and leaves. Oxfam seem to have gone over to much more contemporary cards this year and I think the designs are a great improvement. I overheard one of the elderly ladies who serve behind the counter saying she hated them though. Still you cannot please everyone.

The following images are paintings by the English artist Clare Shepherd. You can find here website here.

Christmas is getting ever closer and I have been on the lookout for new and interesting Christmas card designs. There was a time when I used to buy lots and lots of packets of cards, usually charity cards. But times is 'ard these days and now I only purchase the designs I cannot live without and leave the others on the shelves for wealthier members of the population. I find greetings cards on the whole to be extremely expensive, especially when you think that they cost mere pence to produce en masse. I don't mind if a decent amount of the profit goes to the charity concerned, but sometimes I wonder if that is the case. Why am I buying cards anyway, I can hear you thinking, when I have the means to produce my own. Don't ask. I think it is something to do with the grass being greener on the other side of the fence or perhaps other designers' images being better than mine.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I have long admired Caroline Gardner cards and I have posted a couple with deer images. One is this year's and one is from a previous year but was too nice to send...hah hah. I don't think you can beat a nice coloured deer at Christmas. You might want to check out her website. She is another person who seems to revel in lots of lovely colours.

How many sketch books do you possess? I have a few and some of them have pristine pages. Why? Because I find it very difficult to sketch in a sketch book. I tend to sketch and draw on lots of odd bits of paper and old envelopes etc and then I may stick those in the sketch book. Alternatively, I will do my first sketch on rough paper and then produce a slightly better sketch in the sketch book. I find it nearly impossible to do a completely new sketch in the right place first time. I think it has to do with not wanting to mess up lovely white pages and also worrying about filling up the book too quickly as I produce a huge amount of sketches at a time. My brother's partner, Lesley, has just given me a lovely sketchbook with beautiful quality paper but this time I am determined to draw in the right place. Hmmm.... we'll see.

My featured artist this week is Clare Shepherd who is an English artist living in Dorset. She also enjoys teaching art. She has a wonderful colour sense and her paintings are very contemporary with lots of light and colour. She uses shapes to advantage and these veer slightly toward the abstract. Her work covers a very wide spectrum and on her beautiful website here you can find a huge quantity of artwork. I especially enjoy her landscapes of Dorset and Exmoor.