Hello there!

Hello folks,

I have been absent for a while now, things have been busy, with family and work. Happily so!

 I always get concerned on the blog about images being stolen,(safe to say my lovely friends on the blogs, have experienced some awful copyright problems) so it's sometimes very difficult to write about what I am working on. I don't have a shop, so I'm not selling work, and I found myself  thinking why am I writing this blog??
 I have loved meeting people through writing a blog, but I became rather despondent not getting many comments, feeling a bit 'Billy no mates' :(  Quite pathetic I know.

I think perhaps I ran out of interesting things to say? That is impossible in this wonderful creative world? Or maybe it's just the way I write?? It's sometimes hard to write in an interesting way, but some people do it sooooo well. I follow lots of lovely blogs, and I know they don't always get huggings of comments!
Anyways, I needed a bit of a rest, and then found it difficult to come back here, hence my absence. I've been following all you lovely people out there in blogland though, enjoying all as usual. 

I will be back before too long, and leave you with some images of cards I did that will appear in Waitrose this Christmas. I know it's a bit early to mention Christmas, eeek, so apologies for this.They are teeny tiny cards, but I'm thrilled that they selected my work to be in this store, as it's a bit posh! Oooh get me, going all posh!!

See you again, before too long :)

Dancing days

 I worked on the little book above, for an Aunt of my husbands, her name is Jeanette, and she runs dance classes. It is a passion of hers, as was creating this little book! It was something she had always wanted to do, so I did my best to help.

 Jeanette asked me to create a family who liked to dance, with a boy and girl character to take the role of showing the dance steps. Initially, the children were facing the viewer, but this was not really the best way to show the steps, so they were turned around.  It was quite tricky to do some of the steps, we ended up dancing them in the room, as although it's easy to dance, it's not so easy to illustrate.

 We couldn't find any other books that showed a dance in this way?? So I hope we have managed to get the message across, as that was the hope and certainly Jeanette's desire. Maybe you could try the steps??? and let me know??? If you can see them OK?

 Jeanette has the book for sale on her website godancia.co.uk    That's the hard part, selling, the bit I'm no good at?

To the left is also a little character I've just created, for Valentine/Anniversary send. Hope you like him?

Things have been quite busy for me lately at home. We had some fantastic news, my Son has graduated from Uni, and he obtained the grade he needed to start the job that he also got !!!! Whooppeeeeee
It's been quite a momentous month! It's certainly had me dancing round the room :)

Natures child....

At heart, I would say I love Nature and just about everything it produces, so amazing! I marvel at flowers and the beautiful shapes,colours that are to be found, every little tiny thing is so wonderful to look at. I've been having the best time watching Springwatch this last 3 weeks, I wish it could be on all the time. I've learned so much, about birds, butterflies, bees, insects and so much more, just incredible!
On walks that we manage to do, I have to stop at every stream or river to look for fish etc. It's something from childhood, fishing for sticklebacks, or with my Dad on his fishing ventures. It's fascinating. On a recent walk to Ashford in the Water, we stopped on the bridge and I went to the right to look for fish, nothing....as is usual.....so a little look to the left?  YES, big whopping fish, so close to the surface and the edge, delightful. I think they are rainbow trout, and are so close in to the edge because people feed the ducks there.

There is a fish in this photo in very shallow water.

Ashford in the Water

 I managed to take a few photos, we could have 'tickled' these trout out of the water!
Below are some more photies of the lovely things I saw on our day out, firstly in Ashford in the Water, then on to Taddington. We walked up above the village on a beautiful day with skylarks singing their hearts out.

Up above Taddington.

Taddington

My unusual Allium?

Flowers have closed and are pointing up now?

Last Peony to flower.

pretty on the inside too.

In the garden there have been some blooming lovely flowers and I had a bit of a surprise, something came up which I cannot remember planting?? It is an Allium of sorts, and the bees have loved this flower, even though they have a job climbing up in to them, it's a shame the pretty flower hangs down though. It's been quite fascinating to watch this flower develop, a straight spike, then exploding long bell shaped flower heads, and now the heads are pointing upwards again? What will happen next? I've been helping the Beewatch team by taking photos of the different bees I see (this can be anywhere) it's fascinating how many different ones there are.
I'm busy sketching for a new book, which may or may not go ahead? Also doing some cute little characters, so I'll be back soon.

Two books finished, bish bash bosh......

Book 1

Book 2

I have managed to finish all the artwork of the 2 books I have been working on and I gathered them all together to put them in order. It looks quite a lot of work, it is, but not rushed, just steady and thoughtful. Made the job quite enjoyable overall :)

 Then a day out to Harlow Carr Gardens, and Betty's Tea Room there (yummy)and a little look around the beautiful gift shop there.

Stunning giant pots of tulips

Beautiful and inspiring goodies in the shop.

Gives me a serious case of the wantsies....... :)

Rare Treats

The Hepworth Gallery.

Hepworth close up.

 This past week or so has seen me have some ups and downs. I had migraine for 4 days last week, which was just so awful, I can't eat or drink properly and nothing seems to work in getting rid of it. I have tried many things over many years and was hoping they were going as I've not had such a bad one for about a year. But hey ho, every cloud has a silver lining, and after I emerged from the cloud, I had a lovely day out with friends.
But firstly I managed a trip to my local gallery. I don't really like going on my own to galleries, don't know why, and after this trip I will go more often as I enjoyed it very much. The opportunity to see some lovely artwork, for free, should not be missed. This gallery was opened quite recently, and I have to admit to criticising the building as it was going up, and still do to this day. It is very different, it cost millions and I think it looks awful, see above for the outside shots? It looks so grey and rather like a bunker? If it were painted white or cream, I think it would look so much better and funnily enough there is a little model of the whole gallery inside the shop, which is white and looks quite sweet.

Inside spaces are something else

 When you get inside the building it's a different scene. The spaces are huge and airy and do suit the exhibitions.

Informative boards explaining Barbara Hepworth work.

Barbara Hepworth came from Wakefield. She worked at a similar time to Henry Moore, who came from Castleford, not far away, which is where I was born. They are both hugely famous sculptors. Their sketches and other work appeal to me more, and are quite brilliant.

Hepworths work, these are small sort of thumbnail pieces.

 As well as the sculptures in the gallery, there are other works featured. These change over the year. On my visit, the work of an artist called James Tissot was on display. The paintings were beautiful, how he captured the material on the dresses etc, quite lovely. Below are some of his paintings. I took a photo of the blurb and then the painting.

 The gallery is on the edge of the river, over which a busy road runs. But my eye was taken by a heron busy fishing on the weir. The huge windows in the gallery allow you to walk right up to them and it feels like you could step out, it is a bit unnerving?

Fisherman at work.

 Trust me to spot more birdies, a lovely grey wagtail, perched on top of the flag pole(below) I think it may have had a nest in the boat below?

Grey wagtail.

 Next I had a trip out to Saltaire, to see the 'Open House' festival and the makers fair. I met up with my lovely friend Wendi and her sister Carol, and we had a great day. People open their houses to display artists work, it may be their own work, or others. The terraced streets run in rows and were built for mill workers, many are still cobbled and really quite quaint, it's a fascinating insight.

Salts mill and the cobbled street.

Kate Lycetts art

 One of the artists work we saw, was someone my friend Wendi admired, and she bought  this beautiful print which was a birthday treat. Kate Lycett is the artists name, such lovely work. She has a website www.katelycett.co.uk  I'm sure you could see more there.

My lovely friend Wendi, with her birthday treat.

Inside the Victoria Hall, there was a 'Makers Fair' which displayed the work of craftspeople. I thought the standard was extremely high, some brilliant work in there. I could have spent a fortune, if I had it. I just bought some little bits and pieces.  Below are listed some websites of the makers I particularly liked if you fancied taking a peep.
dear-emma.com    gorgeous fabric pot holders, wallets, pictures etc.
www.katerhodes.com   beautiful jewellery
www.katherineleesceramics.com  unusual ceramic pieces, bottles etc.
www.delicut.co.uk     paper cut detailed cards etc.
See you all again soon with something of my own, possibly inspired by the lovely work I have seen! :)

Oh those blues...and a little pink too!

You remember those blues from my last post?? I've been working on some ideas I had for using them. I've also used parts of my Cyanotype prints that I blogged about ages ago, (those are the leaf prints to the left on this photo, they are basically sun prints, a special dye is painted on to watercolour paper and then it's exposed to sunlight, with leaves etc in-between, great to do...just got be careful as it's cyanide in the paint!)

I've worked on 3 images so far, Bluebirds, to the left here. My original intention was to use bleach on the blue surface, to create a washed out effect, but it bleached too much and so I used a white ink to paint on the blue in this case.

Dragonflies came next, I think with both these subjects I had a 'Sympathy' card in mind to design for, the blues just seem to lend themselves to this I felt. They have a lovely calm feel to them?  I have had too many Sympathy cards to buy lately, and some are just so awful?? I've tried to create something tranquil and peaceful, hope you think it works? Dragonflies are used in a book for children to try and explain death. It uses the fact that dragonflies leave one world under the water, they creep up out as larvae and then transform into beautiful winged insects to fly off into another world. Those left behind cannot follow, until it is their time. Quite a lovely way to put it for children. 

My final image below is using the shape of a Dove, I've used my Cyanotypes only as the patterned background here. I'm not sure this one is finished yet? I thought this could be used as a 'Wedding' idea, as Doves are used as subject matter for this, I may create some confetti shapes to go with this one? I've been doing these little creations on the computer whilst waiting on book decisions. Not far to go now on the books, I will soon have finished the 2 religious ones. I'm hoping I get samples eventually, as it's not been mentioned thus far??

 Out in the garden things are definitely growing like crazy now, despite the fact that it's still not too warm here? I took a photo of these little daisies a few weeks back, they have now gone daisy crazy, and I absolutely love them. They make me smile very time I clap eyes on them.

 The flower in my hand is one of some freeby bulbs I got when I bought the tiny daisy plugs, they are very pretty too, the centre looks like it's been dipped in orange paint, love it! These smell gorgeous too, like jasmine almost, I think they are a narcissus, but you can put me right if you know better?

I am hoping we get some warmth soon, I'm still wearing my winter coat, and I had my gloves on the other day whilst walking the dog!! This is May, for goodness sake. There was snow down in the south too.....weird?? Hope it's warm and sunny wherever you are, although I know there has been some strange weather going on around the world?