Good intentions.

Hi, it has been a while! I have had good intentions to update my blog but time has been against me. I hope there is somebody still out there?

Christmas was a very busy time for us, we had lots of visitors and with all the extra domestic duties I also had a very heavy workload, anyway, enough of my excuses, I hope this year has been good to you so far.

Earlier this month I had a watercolour painting exhibited in Mayfair, London by “Art of the Imagination”. The painting was a new work, inspired by “The Night before Christmas”. As you can see I got a little carried away with the border.





I have been experimenting printing onto canvas; so far I have tried out some images for stretched canvases and handmade books. I plan to do some more when time allows. The little origami book was made with a printed canvas cover and the insides where decorative marbled papers.



The book below was a special find in my local Oxfam shop, it was published by The Golden Cockerel Press in 1937 with original wood engravings by Gwenda Morgan, isn’t it a treasure? I thought you might like it too.



When I have not been at my desk I have been walking Ted, who is in the doghouse yet again. This time for chasing and cornering a squirrel who promptly bit him on the nose. He was so humiliated, in front to his girlfriend too! As you can see from my photograph, the weather has been mild, very wet and windy but so far no extreme cold spells. Some of the leaves remain on the trees; the birds are singing and nesting as if it were spring. I wonder if they are right to be so optimistic, I do hope so.

Down The Garden Path

Thank goodness for a bit of sunshine at last, doesn’t it do the heart good?
It is hard to stay indoors when the garden beckons and a recent visit from an artist friend from oversees proved the perfect excuse to revisit Tatton Park.



You may remember my interview with Celeste from not so long ago?
It was fun to meet up again and the hours flew by as we chatted non-stop about gardens and art and everything else besides!



The walled and knot gardens are perhaps my favourite, I love the repetition of form, the patterns made by brick and box hedges and the way that the herbs and plants therein appear like tiny embroidered jewels. I was so inspired by the garden that I decided to create a new notebook called “The Knot Garden” It contains decorative endpapers and twelve small illustrations scattered about the pages and you can see it here-





The gardens at Tatton and the surrounding parkland have always been an inspiration to me. I based lots of my illustrations from “The Acorn’s Story” on the trees and deer, insects and flowers to be found here including this fallow deer painting. I am in the process of converting this book to make it into an application for the iPad, and other digital readers but before I can send the images to Auryn Inc I need to prepare the files, a long but necessary job.



The lovely town of Knutsford is very close by, childhood home of Elizabeth Gaskell and the setting for the town of “Cranford”.
It also has the very best charity shops, possibly because it has a very affluent catchment area. I have been busy buying up old picture frames and finally got around to framing my print collection, it took so long to arrange them, what a difficult task it proved to be! up a bit, down a bit, left a bit etc….



So you can see I am torn between my garden and my computer and never quite manage to get the balance right. There are so many jobs to be done, all the rain and now the sun’s warming rays have caused a huge growth spurt and everything is bursting with life. The aquilegias are particularly pretty at the moment and have spread into every available nook and cranny. It has been lovely to see the return of the bumblebees and butterflies, including a Yellow Brimstone, I haven’t seen one of those in ages. My cup floweth over!

We have a winner!

Thanks to everyone who took part in my calendar giveaway; a name has been picked out of my hat, ---- drum roll----- and the winner is Kerry O’Gorman.

In my last post I mentioned our trip to London where we visited The British Museum and just managed to catch the Shakespeare exhibition. As that has now closed I will move on to our visit to The British Library where we saw an exhibition called “Mughal India, Art, Culture and Empire

The library itself is based next to St Pancras station; both buildings are worth visiting and could not be more different. The photograph shows the station in the background and the library in front. The new library building reminded me of a Japanese temple. It has simple, modern lines but has a great beauty, not in its ornamentation but in its proportions and in the choice of materials. I love being exploring this wonderful space and if you are anywhere near you should take a moment to go inside. There is always something to see for free, there are places to sit, eat and rest and of course a lovely shop!

The main exhibitions are ticketed, having said that they are not overly expensive and the ones we have seen have been unforgettable. I can honestly say that the current Mughal India exhibition is truly spectacular. There are so many treasures on show the effect is dazzling. I was particularly interested in the exquisite miniature paintings and illuminated books. The artistry on display was amazing, the tiniest of brushstrokes, the brightest of colours, pattern everywhere, on the clothing of the figures in the book illustrations, on the carpets they sat upon and in the borders around the pictures, so much detail it hurt the eyes. If I had to choose one piece it would be a painting of squirrels being chased up a plane tree, you can explore this for yourself here by following the link. As you zoom in over the image bear in mind that this painting is a really small, so much detail has been packed into a tiny area, painted by Abu’l Hasan, 1605-08.

And now, it is time for me to get back to my desk, I have more hand made, limited edition books to parcel up for my Etsy shop. This time I remembered to make a note of the edition numbers outside the boxes, before the final wrap. We live and learn!

Enchanted October

“Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst..” October by Robert Frost

October here in my neck of the woods can be magnificent, golden sun on autumn leaves, misty-moisty mornings clear to reveal blue skies, the smell of wood smoke, all is magical until the dreaded turning back of the clocks. The extra hour in bed is welcome; the dark evenings are definitely not!

Before the clocks went back we did manage to fit in a few grand days out. We drove a short distance over the border to Wales and visited Chirk Castle; driving through early morning mist and heavy grey skies it was rewarding to find ourselves in an enchanted place. The mist evaporated to reveal the castle and gardens in all their glory. I was particularly taken with a small tower, which put me in mind of Rapunzel. Chirk is a National Trust property and you can read more about its seven hundred year history here.

The gardens are truly beautiful and are filled with tall clipped yew trees. You can wonder past herbaceous borders and through woodland walks and on a clear day there are great views of Shropshire and the Welsh hills.

Work has kept me busy but I did manage to finish the hare painting that I started in the summer. A whole season has past and at times I thought the progress was more akin to a tortoise than a hare, I thought I would never finish it.

I bought a Canon iP4950 which produces incredibly detailed prints, the printer itself was very reasonably priced but as with all ink jet printers the cost of quality inks are almost as expensive as the actual printer and I am restricted to A4 size.

It did used to be the case that dye based inks had no longevity and could not be regarded as archival in the way pigment inks could but the new Canon Chromalife 100 plus inks are now expected to have an album life of 200 years or more. I did consider buying a pigment based printer but had to take into account the fact that they have a tendency to dry up if not in regular use. Forgive me if I sound like an advert for Canon, I assure you I am not being paid to say all this.

You can see the finished print here in my Etsy shop

There has been a little time to play and I enjoyed attending a book-making workshop with artist Louisa Boyd. The concertina books we made concentrated on paper surface manipulation techniques, including, cutting, scoring and piercing. Lou had pre-prepared the images we used and explained how she had used Thermofax screens to print her designs. As with all good workshops I came away buzzing with new ideas and a determination to do more screen prints. Lou also showed us some of her hand bound artists books and I encourage you to see her highly individual work for yourself here-

and she has a Facebook page here.

Antiques for Everyone Fair

I’ve been very preoccupied recently with helping my mum purchase a retirement flat and feel that I have been wading through mud as far as creating anything new artistically. I seem to spend more and more time sitting at my computer, trying to get to grips with some new programme or other, at the moment I am doing battle with Indesign. It is always so much more difficult to learn from a book but feel reluctant to enroll on anymore evening classes so I suppose I will just have to carry on regardless. I have been thinking for some time now about getting some of my children’s books back into print through one of the POD companies, one of the reasons why I need Indesign.

Light relief has been found in bookbinding, making origami structures from folded Elephanthide. In case you are wondering, I have not skinned an endangered species; Elephanthide is a very tough paper, which lends itself to paper folding! You can see the finished result here-


I also had some illustrations exhibited at The National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham where I met up with Mike and Hilary Emeny from Books Illustrated Ltd. (see above) at the Antiques for Everyone Fair.The day I went they were very excited to have sold an original Arthur Rackham. Other works on their stand included Ernest Shepard, Edmund Dulac and Annie French.

Handbag or Manbag?

I have been invited by Frances from Fairy Lanterns who in turn accepted an invitation from Frances of City views, Country dreams to reveal the contents of my handbag.
Both of the aforementioned have wonderful blogs, which are well worth a visit.

Now them, I don’t actually use a handbag as such but I do carry a rather scruffy shoulder bag on most excursions outdoors. I bought my bag in Bruges three years ago and have been using it constantly ever since. It reminds me of the kind of bag Isaac Walton would have taken with him on a fishing trip; it could well be a described as a manbag!

Inside, slightly more feminine and even a little bit canine. In the small front pockets, a hair appointment loyalty card, tissues and what are sometimes rather politely called “dog waste bags”, unused I hasten to add!

In the main part I have the usual, purse, keys, mobile phone, camera (you never know when the next photo opportunity may arise) and glasses. A tiny notebook with a tulip cover, which a friend brought back, from The Rijks Museum. A handmade leather notebook, one of my many attempts at bookbinding. A tissue holder which I made using some Debbie Mumm fabric and a little coin purse which I sewed using some of my own fabric which this holds change for the car park and two lipsticks. I also have two Oyster cards from a recent trip to London; these are used by Londoners on buses and tubes and can be topped up when needed. Last but not least I have my trusty green umbrella and lovely silk lined soft black leather gloves both of which were presents from my mum.

I would like to invite you to play along if you have the time or the inclination. Do you favour the handbag or the manbag?

Craft Hope.

The Etsy community is getting together to help relief efforts in Haiti. Anyone who has items to donate is urged to join in to raise money for this important cause. Craft Hope, see the link in my sidebar, has been set up to benefit Doctors without borders in Haiti.

The shop needs supporters as well as donations, maybe you too could add a button to your blog?
Further details are available here

I decided to donate an artist book, shown above If this sells all the proceeds (minus Etsy fees) will go to the charity, (this goes for all the sales in the shop). So far the shop has raised $7,000 for Doctors Without Borders. In TWO DAYS!

Update, this item SOLD on 17th January. Thank you!


I would also like to thank Eli from raccoltodautunno for this delightful hand painted decoration. Eli was one of the winners in my earlier blog giveaway.The decoration now hangs in my studio and looks very pretty, thank you Eli!

Playtime.

First of all, before I forget, I would like to thank Olivia at 4roomsandthemoon for nominating me for a blog award and also Julie from beadholder.etsy.com for listing one of my books in a treasury.

I would also like to thank everyone who visited my blog over Christmas and left kind messages. We had a very enjoyable and busy Christmas with family and friends but now the last guest has departed, I have been enjoying a bit of time to myself, time to play!

In September, my husband gave me a set of wood/lino cutting tools. Now, some women like perfume, others bags and shoes, but for me, I just love receiving craft tools! Last Christmas I got a Japanese hole punch which works like a dream, this year I treated myself to needle nosed pliers and a crimping tool, aren’t I the lucky one? However, I digress, I have been playing with my lino cutting tools and have managed to make several prints of a barn owl feather for a little book project I have been working on called “Silent Flight”.

Cutting lino is fraught with difficulties and I have many failed attempts which I consigned to the bin. The wood cutting tools gave a much better result than my old "school" set but as a print maker I feel I have a long way to go, however I have enjoyed myself immensely and have made a great deal of mess in the process.

Owl in Oak Album

I have been doing quite a bit of experimenting with various inkjet coated fabrics, with varying degrees of success. I have found that by printing directly onto the fabric the effect is much better than the iron-on type of medium which has been around for some years now. By creating patterns on Photoshop, using my original hand drawn design, I devised this decorative cover for a small album. I used a Japanese style stab binding using some lovely hand dyed linen thread which I bought on a recent trip to Faulkiners.

On the whole I was pleased with the result but can see room for improvement. My other attempts are in my wheelie bin!

My Herb Garden

Ever since I visited Erasmus Darwin House in Lichfield, I have been trying to grow herbs with varying degrees of success. The herb garden in Lichfield is exquisite, all the better for being enclosed, it reminds me of a secret garden.

My herb garden is tiny, I have mint, parsley, thyme, chives, basil (from the supermarket!) and sage. A campanula has crept in but I allow it to stay as it looks pretty. Chives do very well, they grow next to my Dublin Bay rose and I have just learnt a new saying; "chives next to roses create posies", it seems that they help prevent black spot. I planted sage last year and it survived the winter, it's now in flower, a lovely shade of purple.

Sometimes my garden, albeit very small, seems overwhelming, everything grows so fast and it is a constant battle to keep things in check. I do have one helper however, especially good at digging and that is my Jack Russell, Ted. I am not sure what he was looking for but he certainly enjoyed himself!

The nice thing about growing herbs apart from the fragrance and taste, is that they make very good subjects for my designs.

An A to Z of flora by Valerie Greeley

I have spent a great deal of time over the last few years, trying to learn many new skills and have turned into something of a course junky. So far I have had classes on Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Desk top publishing, not to mention the numerous classes and workshops on bookbinding. The grand plan behind all of this frenzied activity was enable me to produce my own books all be it in very small quantities. After many failed attempts I have finally produced one that I am pleased enough to offer for sale! This miniature book is printed on Bockingford paper and measures three inches by two inches. I have had great fun making it and hope to do more as time allows. You can read more about this book if you visit my Etsy shop.

Note Books

I have been making little note books by hand, printing the designs on my computer printer.