Two Cats And A Frog

I was very amused at an incident at our local large supermarket today. I set off the alarm as I entered the store and was stopped by the security guard. I told him that I hadn't bought anything yet and he laughed. He wanted to know if I had a new jacket on. I was wearing one about a year old and had often visited the shop in it in the past. It turned out that it had a magnetic strip carefully hidden inside the washing instruction label. I wasn't even aware that it was there but he must have had experience of exactly that. It is the kind of tiny magnetic strip shops use on all sorts of "expensive" items like DVD's, pricey cosmetics etc. The shop where I bought my jacket should have removed it when I purchased it. He told me that the store had upgraded their security system and it was much more sensitive now, hence it recognised my magnetic strip whereas before it had ignored it. I went home and removed another one that I had in a similar jacket just in case. I bet the security guards were kept busy removing those strips from customers clothing since the upgrade.

This is The Gardener's Cat and took quite a while to draw. Not too sure about the text at the bottom though. I may change it to another font as I think it looks a bit messy and I think it would show up more if it were black.

I couldn't resist taking this photograph on a visit to Studham church recently. I have seen many, many churches in my time but never one with roses around the porch.

This is the beautiful monument that I had been meaning to photograph for some time. It is in Waterperry Church and is a dedication to a young mother who died aged 27 and left behind her less than 6 month old child. I think it is the most poignant and lovely sculpture and you get a real feeling for the grief of the bereaved husband. I took the photo by natural daylight because it gives a lovely glow to the marble.

If you love dogs and textiles you will love Sue Britton's website "Dogs in Stitches" here. Sue is a UK textile designer who creates beautiful and quirky studies of dogs getting up to all sort of mischief. She uses her own three dogs as inspiration and loves to include patterns and embellishment. Her website is a delight to browse and the dogs are irresistible.

Countryside Capers (detail)

Bundle Of Fun

Whilst cat sitting the other week I noticed Abby peering at something in the grass.

It turned out to be a frog who had been jumping around near the pond. It very obligingly kept still whilst I took its photo. Unfortunately Abby was intent on making the frog's very close aquaintance and I had to use one hand to fend her off and the other to photograph the frog. Eventually it returned to the pond and safety.

Poppy was paying absolutely no attention whatsoever, being more interested in a little laid back grooming.

The lovely ceramics below were made by UK ceramic artist Adele Thurstan. Her designs on the ceramics are very illustrative in nature and are produced from her pen and ink drawings which are screen printed using ceramic enamels on to the item. You can find more of Adele's work here at New Ashgate Gallery and here at Cambridge Contemporary Crafts.

I love Joe McLaren's illustrations. He has such a talent in whatever medium he happens to be working in. I think these Christmas cards below are a touch of genius and I wish I had thought of them. He knows exactly which colours to put together. You can find lots of his work if you do a google search for his name but otherwise he can be found here on his Flickr page.

Christmas Card 2

Christmas Card

Three Chickens On An Overcast Day

Three Chickens And Oast House

UK artist Jenny Holm's paintings are quite magical. They have a wonderful movement and rhythm and a lot of my favourite subjects. Her ladies are quite beautiful with their clothes and long hair flowing and her landscapes and trees are mystical and mysterious. Jenny sets the scene with colour and mood and leaves the viewer to decide on the narrative. She is based in Northumberland and you can find lots more lovely artworks here at The Biscuit Factory and here at her Axis site.

Hurrying Home

A New Day Dawning

With The Wind In Her Hair

Feeding The Birds

Textile Chickens And Angel Blessings

My images this week are both angels with blessings. I told you I would be doing a lot of angels now that I have my copyright free angel book, although actually the digital angel predates the book.

This is my first etching for quite a while. I have gone over to washable etching ink now as I was making a hideous mess with the other one. The result is just as good to my eyes although there are probably some traditionalists who don't agree. I only have blue and black ink at the moment but I will get some more colours soon. I must say I am very pleased with how this has turned out and I don't say that very often with my etchings, being a beginner to the medium. I am definitely finding the inking up the most difficult part of the process but I have the same problem with linocuts too. Hopefully that will come easier as I get more experienced at printing. I will probably have a dabble with my copper plates soon.

This is called Blessing The Hare



This is the etching on the perspex plate. It is clear. The brown paper behind is so that it can be seen easily.

Tree Guardian Blessing The Autumn - I drew this quite a while ago as a pen and ink drawing but decided to add a touch of digital colour. I still have the pen and ink version though.

These beautifully complex landscape wood engravings are by the English painter and printmaker Garrick Palmer. He was born in Portsmouth in 1933 and taught at Winchester School of Art at the same time that I lived in the town. These must have taken him many hours of painstaking work to complete. You can see more of his work at Emma Mason here (3 pages) and also here at Old Stile Press.

Fields

Sun and Trees

We went on a geocaching visit to Haddenham village last week. It is the quintessential English village with houses grouped around a huge village green complete with ancient parish church and duck pond. The sort of village the producers of "Midsomer Murders" love. and oddly enough, I recognised this very village in one of the series which I got from the library. I have since read that it has been used as a backdrop by them no less than eight times. The village itself is Anglo-Saxon in origin and the present church dates from 1200's although there was undoubtedly a Saxon church here prior to that date. Haddenham is one of three wychert villages in the country, which is a method of using white clay and straw to make walls and buildings. As for the geocaching; that was great fun and we found all the caches.

The church has lots of lovely green and healthy looking lime trees everywhere. Very photogenic.

This lovely old cottage was right up beside the church. They have some huge hollyhocks and I bet they have a wonderful cottage garden on the other side of that wall.

This lovely old house was on the other side of the church.

A couple of the residents of the village duck pond

and finally a wonderfully textured old doorway of a deserted house in the village. Not sure I would want to live there though. I notice it is number 13.

Josephine Broekhuizen is a Dutch artist who married and settle on Arran in Scotland where she has a large studio and smallholding. I love the subtlety of her oils and still lifes and those Marans' are gorgeous. She has also produced linocuts and collages. You can see lots of her work here and you can also see her earlier work archive here.

Maran Chickens

Field Fares

Three Men In A Boat detail

I love this beautiful pen and ink hare and green woodpecker by Anne Mieke Lumsden. Originally from Holland but now in Somerset she works mainly in ink and oils. Her hares are lovely and you can see some more here at Fountain Fine Art.

Rose Clay's Etsy shop is a delight to browse. It is called Three Sheep Studio and you can find it here. Rose is a very talented fibre artist who uses beautiful wool to create her lovely designs. She then enjoys embellishing them with various hand embroidery stitches, glass beads etc. She also creates traditionally hooked rugs and dyes her own woollen fabrics for sale. A lot of the designs are available as PDF patterns. My favourites have to be the Urban Chicken series, of which three can be seen below.

Beaded Wool Berries

Jacobean Flower Wool Work

Angels And Animals

Sorry the post is a bit lengthy this week. All those angel photos I expect but I thought I would post them all together rather than doing some this week and the rest next. Keep all your angels together I say. I will have to start searching for some new angels to photograph now which means another trip up to one of the outer London Victorian cemeteries.

I had intended posting my latest etching, which is an angel oddly enough, but it has taken much longer than I anticipated so I will have to leave that one for next week.

I have gone for a bit of colour drama with this digital image. I am not entirely happy with it though. I may have to tweak it a bit. I think the background may need a bit of black to affiliate it more with the tree as the tree is standing out too much. I am thinking this tree would make a nice needlepoint design.


This is a pen and ink drawing of a kingfisher. Now this one I am entirely satisfied with. No tweaking needed here.

These images are of my latest charity shop find. It is un-named but it is obviously an etching which I think may have been printed as a plate for a book. I am not sure what the process is but it is beautifully reproduced and the detail and colouration are exquisite. It is a very large artwork but only cost me £4.95 which I think is a bit of a bargain.

If you click on the image here you can just see the beautifully etched big cats lurking in the jungle.

I visited a favourite local art and craft gallery today who stock Marlene Hounam jewellery. I have a bracelet of hers that I bought some while ago and would love to add to my collection. She works in silver and semi precious stones and creates some gorgeous designs. Below are two favourites I crave.

The Rudge family are rightly very well known for their ceramic work. The family comprises Lawson E who is the father of Keza, Dillon and Lawson. They are all talented ceramic artists and sculptors with their own individual styles. I particularly love the stylised work of Lawson Senior who crafted the images below. You can find examples of his work at the following sites - at the Montpellier Gallery here, Rostra and Rooksmoor Galleries here and Lantic Gallery here.

Square Cow

Round Rabbit

Below are some photos of the angel sculptures I have collected over a period of time. I have removed the backgrounds of most of them because they distract from the beauty of the sculpture. Most of these sculptures are from the Victorian period. We would be a lot poorer without the Victorian ideal of funerary monuments. I think they are more beautiful now with stains of age upon them than they probably were when they were first erected.

The lovely oils below are the work of artist and illustrator Hannah Giffard. Hannah trained at Norwich School of Art and loves the wide open Norfolk countryside. Her stylised animal and bird images are beautifully painted and she uses symbolism to produce an almost mythic quality to her work. I think it is wonderful. Hannah has a great website here with lots of images of her art to enjoy and also details the childrens' books and other work she has produced. Definitely a visit worth making.

Ram And Crows In The Barley

Two Crows In Poppyfield

Hares At Caister

Hare And Crow In The Corn

Lesley found a lovely ex-library book in a local charity shop recently (she knows what I like!) It is "What Is The Truth" by Ted Hughes and is beautifully illustrated by R.J. Lloyd. It is a combination of poetry and prose and is called A Farmyard Fable For The Young. I haven't had much to do with Ted Hughes poetry in the past but there are some here that I really like. These are all connected with nature and animals and birds. Reginald Lloyd is a very well known artist with work in many prestigious collections, including the V&A. He has illustrated this book with numerous images and I have just chosen some of my favourites below. They have a lovely graphic quality, and I love the way he has employed the moon in many of them.

Here is the poem relating to the fox - or the last verse anyway:

"And he's nailed our fear of darkness to his four paws dipped in quickness,

Our cowardice a nail

In the white tip of his tail,

With the limestone from our hearts, he's whitewashed his underparts,

And he flees us like a robber, says the Hunting Horn"