Angels And Birds - What More Could You Want?

Quite late with my blog this week as everything seems to have taken ages to do. All that detail I suppose. Artists who draw minimalistic artwork must have so much more time for reading and browsing the Internet than people who like to draw detail.

Whisper A Secret - digital drawing

This is my latest pen and ink drawing which is unfinished. It is called The Voyagers for the moment but that could change. I still have quite a bit of drawing to do to finish the boat. I find that scanned drawings never look as good as photographed ones. You lose a lot of the detailed pen marks and everything tends to become greyed. I will probably photograph this when it is completed.

The rooks are finished now. I didn't add very much really because I didn't want to spoil them. It is so easy to spoil a drawing as I can tell you from experience...ha ha. I will be drawing some more rooks now I have the knack.

Pen and ink hare drawing which took ages to do and I am not 100 percent satisfied with it.

I received another lovely blog award from fellow blogger Kat of Poetikat's Invisible Keepsakes. Kat is a cat loving (wouldn't you know it?) poet and writer and has a very interesting and entertaining blog.

I snapped this fellow turning over leaves on a wet day last autumn in Richmond Park in London. It must have been a fruitful exercise because there were several crows peering under leaves. The members of the crow family are fascinating birds. They are all highly intelligent and crows and rooks can learn to do quite amazing things.

I enjoy looking at crow and rook pictures and other black birds. Here is Valerie McLean's beautiful crow painting

These brooches are by jewellery designer Anna de Ville who is self-taught and is inspired by nature to produce her lovely quirky pieces. Her website is here and you can also find her work here.

Starling Brooch

Bird Brooches

Running Hare Brooch

I found these delightful artworks on the Flickr site of blueshineart here. I love the birds perched on her arms.

If She Could Fly

Mother

Girls and I

It is nearly Art In Action time again. This is a huge marqueed art and craft extravaganza which is held in the beautiful grounds of Waterperry House in Oxfordshire. (Rowan Atkinson lives in the village if anyone is interested...ha ha) I visited in 2006 and 2007 but I am not sure that I will be able to go this year. Just in case I don't I have posted below some of the photos from the 2006 event. All disciplines are covered and some of the artists are very well known as it is really the cream of the crop in the art and craft world. It is primarily designed for the artists to demonstrate their particular area of expertise although their work is for sale and there is a massive marquee selling their work.

If you enlarge the photos you can see the artists names.

This is in the textiles tent and this is tapestry artist Joan Baxter. Kirsten Glassbrook was also exhibiting at this show and it was lovely to see these two wonderful artists and their huge looms.

Joan Baxter demonstrating.

This is in the illustration tent and somewhere behind this press of people is Hannah Firmin who is a very well known printmaker and illustrator. She gave a fascinating display of linocutting.

This is in the stained glass tent.

This is in the Living Sculpture tent. The sculptor was a joy to watch.

If felt is your thing that you could do no better than visit 3FUN at her Etsy shop here where she handmakes her felt jewellery. Her work is beautifully bright, contemporary and fun.

Lush Line Abstract Flower Necklace

Tears Of The Phoenix Necklace

Purple and Green Bracelet

The images below are the paintings of Russian artist Alexander Anufriev. He was born in Russia in 1940 and educated at an art school for gifted children. In 1980 Anufriev emigrated to the USA and now lives and works in Washington. He is strongly inspired by Renaissance art and he says of his art "When I paint, I stand between the heavens and the earth trying to make the invisible visible. I find his pictures beautifully simple, mysterious and contemporary and could look at them all day. You can find lots more of his art at London Art.

Evening Harvest

Angel With Roses

Angel With Earth

Angel With Bird

Musicians

A Question

Untitled

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.