"Pass The Book" Giveaway

This is my latest drawing and is...yes, you have guessed it...The Woman Who Planted Trees VI. I bet you are wondering whether this series will number into the hundreds. No, I will probably stop at X. I am just enjoying doing them so much. I haven't had much time for drawing lately as I have been busy making cards for my previous giveaway winners. All should be back to normal next week though.

"pass the book" giveaway

Do you remember when I won the "Pass The Book" giveaway from Carolyn of Love Stitching Red blog? Carolyn's prize to me was lots of lovely handcrafted and other goodies which I was absolutely delighted to win. The book is intended to be passed on to the next lucky reader with a selection of some goodies to travel with it. It originated with Emma of Silver Pebble blog and I was the third reader. I have added my name to the inside cover. I must admit that I have kept it a bit too long but it is to be given away now. It is a lovely book and well worth reading.

My goodies giveaway will be some of my handmade cards and prints etc. Just leave a comment on this post and I will pick the winner at random next Sunday and then send "Miss Read" off to her new temporary home.

Who could resist these gorgeous Maureen Minchin ceramics? They are lovely and bright and quirky.
Maureen lives and works in the Scottish Highlands. You can see more of her work here at Imagine Gallery and here at Cambridge Gallery.

We went Geocaching again on Sunday for the first time for months. We found the first two caches easily but the next three eluded us. We must be out of practice. We incorporated the search into a lovely walk in the countryside. The weather was superb - quite hot in fact. Everyone was out enjoying the sunshine after being cooped up all winter.

Here is one of the lovely lanes we walked up

and lots of lovely green fields we wandered past

The weather has really brought the fruit trees and hawthorn into full bloom recently. They are quite superb and I cannot get enough photos of them.

and these two mischief makers were following me around on my walk this afternoon. They seemed to be unattended but they may have temporarily escaped their owner.

I love the deliciously coloured landscape etchings of Rebecca Vincent. She has a real knack for producing lovely patchwork layers of texture and colour. Rebecca is a Northumbrian artist and printmaker who together with artist colleague Carol Nunan runs the Horsley Printmakers. They produce handmade prints and undertake printmaking workshops. I wish I lived there. I would definitely take a few workshops with them. My maternal family come from Northumberland and it is a very beautiful county. You can find their website here.

Patchwork Landscape - Ploughed Field 2007

Windswept Farmhouse Card

Did anyone follow the excellent Monty Don series called Mastercrafts? Monty explored British crafts along with three people in each show who were completely new to the craft. I watched the stained glass and the weaving episodes on i Player a few weeks ago. The weaving was mind blowing. Three artistic young people were taken in hand by experienced weaver Margot Selby and taught to weave in 6 weeks. Even the setting up of the threads on the loom was incredibly complicated and that was before they started weaving fabric. One tiny thread out of place could, and did, spell disaster for the design. Two of the participants, Holly Berry and Tref Davies got the hang of it very quickly and produced some amazingly complex cloths at the end of the 6 week period, but the third girl found it very difficult to even get the loom threaded up.

Below you can see what they achieved. Holly's is on the left. I loved her design and the colours she had chosen. Tref's was also amazing and very complex. I imagined what I could produce in just six weeks and I could never have come up with anything like theirs, providing I got the loom threaded in the first place. They are obviously both natural weavers. Holly has a blog here with more pictures of her weaving. You can find Margot Selby's website here with some images of the three weavers. Margot is one of the few professional weavers in the country who are able to make a living from their craft.

Holly Berry and Tref Davies's woven fabrics.

I couldn't have an art blog without mentioning James Lynch, although a lot of people will probably know of him. He has a magical talent for portraying a glowing, light filled world that we would all like to inhabit. He is well known for his visionary paintings containing beautiful animals but recently has concentrated on the Somerset, Dorset areas. He uses a time consuming technique of egg tempera for his work and the results are exquisite. I also found out from his website here that he has produced a book of his paintings acompanied by the work of three poets. Sounds like it would be well worth getting.

Geese

Leaping Hare

Goose In A Field Of Corn

Annie Smits Sandano's website is an absolute delight to visit. Annie was born in Brazil and moves between there and New Zealand. She is a very successful artist/printmaker. She has the most wonderful sense of design and her birds are quite exquisite. I love her two mixed media figurative pieces below too. You can find her here.

Pepe Wahine Waituhi

Kura Paru Circles

Kauri Green With Tuis

Tui Tane Waituhi

Blog Anniversary Giveaway Winners

Although I have drawn the winners of my blog anniversary giveaway below, I will be having another one next week for the "pass the book" giveaway. The book is Miss Read and is a lovely "read" and I will be passing it on to someone else along with some of my goodies. I will explain more about it next week.

Only had time for one piece of artwork this week. This is called The Daisy Chain

The 2nd blog anniversary draw was drawn tonight and these were the entrants. I decided to have six winners instead of four.

and here are the six blog giveaway winners

If you cannot read them due to my terrible photo, they are:

Silverpebble (Emma)
Anonymous (Deb)

Artpropelled (Robyn)
Crafty Green Poet (Juliet)

Nature's Cat (Amanda)
Andamento (Anne)

So if you would like to let me know your addresses and preferences ladies I will post the items off to you asap.

This lovely hare engraving by Kathleen Lindsley is very seasonal. You can find her website here with lots more gorgeous artwork. Such detailed work in such a small format is amazing. Kathleen lives and works from a studio on the Isle of Skye.

March Hare

I have been doing quite a lot of walking recently because our weather has improved a lot lately. Lots of photo opportunities with beautiful blossoms and flowers everywhere.

I had some fun with my photo of forgetmenots in Photoshop Filters the other day. You will need to click on the pictures to enlarge them and see the results better. Below is the original picture...

this one is crystallised

this one drybrushed

and this is pointillised. Lovely effects aren't they?

I have long been an admirer of UK jeweller Lyn Antley's work. I have seen her many times at craft fairs and have often had to wait a while to even reach her stall because there are so many people fascinated by her lovely jewellery. She is very inspired by myths and magic, fairy tales and animals, and distant lands. Her hares and foxes are my favourites but she produces a huge range of different work. Some of her rings have secret messages written inside. Unfortunately her website is down for the moment due to maintenance but if you go here you can check it out when it is back in working mode. You can also see three pages of her jewellery here at Iapetus.

Dancing Hare

Angel

Fox

Fernando Oliveri is an outstanding Oxacan artist who produces amazing paintings and prints. The first two below are drypoint etchings and the bottom two are woodcuts. Has paintings are beautifully naive and dramatic, often of angels. You can see lots of his work on the Indigoarts Gallery website here, here , here, here and here. Lots to view as you can see.

Mar de la Esperanza

Angelita

Mariposa

Para Mi Corazon Basta Tu Pecho

These three beautiful paintings are by Scottish artist Joe Smernicki. Joe has worked as an art teacher while pursuing his own painting. His inspiration comes from the environment around his home in Scotland. His style is fascinating - stylised and beautifully colourful, and his compositions are very balanced. I never fail to be impressed by the talent of Scottish artists, especially with the colours they use. You can find Joe's website here, but if you enter his name in a search engine you can find lots of galleries which stock his work.

Free Range

High Summer

Road End

Second Anniversary Giveaway

I have only had time to produce one image for this post. This is an ink and watercolour painting of an Easter Bird. Why Easter Bird - no idea, but it is Easter and it is a bird. We are having a bit of a wild and woolly Easter actually but buds are breaking through on the trees and hedges and the daffs and tulips are gorgeous so no complaints from me.

Its giveaway time at long last. I said I was going to have a giveaway for my 100th post which was last year but I forgot all about it, so I have saved that giveaway and added it to my 2nd anniversary of blogging giveaway. My first post was April 14 2008 and the first person to comment back then who is still commenting today is Stephanie of Primitive Folk Art who creates beautiful primitive dolls and ornaments. Thanks for your support Stephanie. Also a huge thanks to everyone who pops in to see what I have found in the wonderful world of art and craft each week.

When I started blogging two years ago I didn't think I would still be blogging today - but here I am. Anyway, back to the giveaway - I will choose four people randomly who leave a comment on THIS post and they can pick whichever one of the three pointillism prints below that they fancy. These are drawings I did many years ago and had professionally printed for some exhibitions. Although it doesn't show they are signed and titled on the print. I will also include with each print a selection of my handmade greetings cards. I will draw the names on Sunday 11 April in time for my next blog post.

Watching Fox

Siamese Cat

Sheep

The lovely paintings below are by Scottish artist Ingebjorg Smith. Ingebjorg originally worked as an illustrator, lecturer and theatre designer but since moving to Tain in the Scottish Highlands she has concentrated on her mixed media collage paintings. Her work particularly involves animals, birds and nature scenes and, to me, it has a magical charm. You can find her work in many places on the Internet but two places are here at the Kilmorack Gallery and here at Nantais Gallery, and of course her own website here.

Winter Songthrush

Winter Woodcock


I have been out and about with my camera a bit more since spring has sprung. Here are two images from the old year

and two images from the new

I found a rather nice looking nest box in a huge tree on one of my forays the other day. When you notice one, you start noticing that there are lots of them around. I wonder if anyone has taken up residence.

Starling Silhouette

Crow Silhouette

I found a lovely children's book at a charity shop a few weeks ago. It is called The Gift Of The Magi by O Henry and is illustrated by Austrian artist Lisbeth Zwerger. It is a lovely story about a couple who have to sell things very precious to them in order to buy each other Christmas gifts. I hadn't come across Lisbeth Zwerger before but she is a very popular award wining artist who has illustrated lots of childrens' stories in her lovely, delicate watercolour style.

You may recognise the image of Dot below, by American ceramicist Kelly Connole as being on the front cover of the wonderful Lark resource "500 Animals In Clay". Kelly is a very gifted ceramicist who produces the most deliciously quirky and loveable hares and rabbits and crows and other animals. She admits to having a deep connection to the earth, animals and nature in general and to being inspired by them. I certainly find her work very inspirational. You can find lots more lovely ceramics here on her website.

Dot

Savouring A Pear Flavoured Cup

Ida And Ivy

George Underwood painted the three incredible images below. In the past he has worked in the music industry and as an illustrator. He has produced lots of album covers for musicians, book covers, portraits etc. In fact the fascinating welcome page painting on his website shows his latest album cover. His work is described as fantasy realism. I think his figures are very mysterious and exquisitely painted. You can see lots more of his work on his website here. I particularly love his attention to headwear.

Be somebody

Close-Up

Magnolia