Medieval Inspiration

Tony and I recently visited the City of Norwich, an ancient Cathedral City, which also has a castle, built by the Normans over 900 years ago. You would expect buildings as old as that to be a ruin; they are in fact remarkably intact. The castle actually looks like it could be a recreation made for a film set, it is so perfect and undamaged.

Norwich is a truly beautiful city, so many treasures and so little time with just two days to pack in as much history, art, sight seeing and shopping as possible. We walked along the river, peered into gardens behind flint and stone walls, admired tapestries hung on castle walls and wandered around the cathedral and close.

As you would expect, the cathedral houses many magnificent features built to impress kings; Norwich being second only to London in importance. Despite all its grandeur, the thing that I loved most were the carved stone ceiling bosses, over one thousand and each one different. They reflected the thoughts, imaginations and understandings of the medieval mind. You might expect to see biblical scenes and characters like Noah, but you can also see strange mythical creatures, dragons, green men, and acrobats, thieves compete for attention. The carvings show some of their original colours and gold decoration, faded now but still vibrant and lively.

Filled with enthusiasm and inspiration on my return I set to work embellishing my owl prints. I finished the painting some time ago, you may remember I wrote about it previously. I had the prints professionally printed and was astounded to see what the newest digital printers are capable of, the colours reproduce perfectly and the paper used is comparable to the original watercolour paper, in fact it is almost impossible to tell the original from the reproduction. Rather than offer the prints untouched I decided to add some hand finished details. I used gold leaf on the crescent moon and gold paint and ink on the border decorations. I like to think that the addition of gold leaf and paint gives the prints a human touch and makes a connection with the artisans of the past. You can see the finished print here in my Etsy shop.

"A Time to Dance"

The wedding I mentioned in my last post took place on a beautifully sunny day, thankfully the bride and groom where blessed with golden light as they took their wedding vows. The bride made her own bouquets and corsages out of buttons, silks, ribbons and beads, choosing purple and ivory as the theme. I shed a tear or two as she walked down the aisle on the arm of her father who was also the best man at our wedding. We all asked ourselves where those years had gone and how quickly!

The ceremony took place in a wonderful old Tudor Hall and afterwards the guests could wander through rose gardens and mazes and enjoy a perfectly heavenly day followed by feasting and festivities in the evening.

There was much excitement as the post man arrived with a huge parcel addressed to Ted, in case you don’t already know, Ted is our dog. We had agreed to take part in a trial of his favourite treat, how could we say no? Time will tell whether or not they make a difference to his health, he has always been a healthy, energetic dog despite having just celebrated his 12th birthday, but he is certainly enjoying wolfing back the goodies and his coat does look very shiny and his eyes sparkle.

Grandson George came to stay and we enjoying playing in the garden and doing “plantin” which is his word for gardening. He likes nothing better than watering the plants with a little watering can. We sat still and waited for the birds to take turns, drinking and bathing in the shallow bird bath. Simple pleasures but precious ones.

I had two lovely parcels in the post, one from Celeste Goulding containing an exquisitely wrapped necklace and one from LilyMoon filled with decorated badges and post cards. Both of these ladies have Etsy shops, Celeste can be found here and LilyMoon here

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I also made some progress on a new painting but had to put it to one side in order to create new Christmas designs for a presentation. Just as the sun decides to make an appearance I am obliged to paint holly and robins. Such is life!

Busy as a little bee.

I know I promised to write more about the Lake District but time has run away with me once more so forgive me if I fast forward into July. In between rainstorms of epic proportions we have tried our best to catch a little sunshine and keep on top of our little garden, which is lush and green with all that rain! I have had spells of working non stop, to meet deadlines for projects whilst trying not to neglect my family, house and garden and trying to find time to devote to making books to replenish my shop and some just for fun. The apple sketches are made up part of recent packaging project albeit a little out of season.

I made a brown leather long stitch notebook for my husband and a single section notebook for my mum. A needle book for a friend, based on a tutorial by Tiny Happy that you might like to try out yourself here? I also made a wedding guest book for my Goddaughter and had some left over for a miniature.

When the sun did decide to peep out from the clouds we visited nearby Erdigg, which is located in Wales. It seems strange that within a short drive from our home we can be in a place where “garden” is also called “yr ardd”. This eighteenth century country house has a very warm, friendly atmosphere and you get the sense that it housed servants who were valued and well looked after. I loved wandering through the formal gardens and enjoyed the walled gardens with their herbaceous borders and of course I had to take home a plant from their shop; a purple salvia.

We noticed some newly fledged swallows in one of the buildings, if you click on the photograph you can just about make them out, perched on a cartwheel. One of the buildings housed an impressive array of wood working tools and I thought how much my dad would have appreciated those carefully honed chisels. I think I have inherited his love of tools and woe betides anyone who uses my little hammer without replacing it! We treated ourselves to a cream tea and sat outside in the sunshine, a rare treat indeed.

Later we chatted to the beekeeper who told us how difficult the rain and cold has been for the bees. They will not fly in the rain or cold and this will have an effect not only on the honey yield but also on the fruit and flower crops, as they depend on bees to pollinate their flowers. He showed us the inside of the hive and explained how it worked. I had not appreciated the structure of the hives and how they start as a man made form. This is made of bees wax in the shape of a honeycomb; the bees then build their incredible complex structure onto this, just as they would in the wild. The queen bee is confined to the lower compartment, her size prevents her from entering the higher levels; this is to stop her laying her eggs in the honey. Please correct me if I am wrong: I often am!

Mountains and Valleys.

We are halfway through June already and my poor blog has been sadly neglected. We have been out and about and, between jaunts, there has been a great deal of work and catching up to do, so only now do I have time to reflect on recent activities.

We had a wonderful week of sunshine, which coincided with a trip to the Lake District and an artist book workshop run by Emily Martin of the "Naughty Dog Press". The book arts weekend concentrated on paper engineering, making pop-up structures by various methods including cutting into valley folds and mountain folds. I can’t think of a better venue to learn about mountains and valleys!

There was so much to see, lovely walks through forests and lakeside gardens and wonderful houses to visit."Blackwell House" was first on the list; this Arts and Crafts house had an exhibition of Arts & Crafts Stamped Cloth Book Cover Designs which included several book designs by my hero Walter Crane. The house is set on the hillside overlooking Lake Windermere and is a treasure house of Arts and Crafts style furniture, stained glass, books, and textiles, everything in keeping with the architectural style of the house which was designed by Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott

Later in the week we visited Ruskin’s House “Brantwood” which perches on the hillside overlooking Coniston and has the most beautiful garden, which winds down to the shore. I remember visiting when I was in the sixth form studying geography and geology. Ruskin was fascinated by the natural world and collected and drew inspiration from fossils, shells and plant forms. There is something extraordinarily intense about his drawings which spoke to me all those years ago. Later I was to learn about his influence on Art theory, architecture and design, and how he inspired the Pre Raphaelites and designers such as William Morris and Walter Crane who in turn influenced The Arts and Crafts Movement. Looking at the position of his house and garden it is easy to see why he was so influenced by nature and beauty.

"It is written on the arched sky; it looks out from every star. It is the poetry of Nature; it is that which uplifts the spirit within us."

John Ruskin

Of course we had to visit Hilltop farm, home of Beatrix Potter. We even caught a glimpse of Peter rabbit, happily nibbling grass in the orchard. We also visited London but I shall keep that for later. I hope you managed to catch a bit of sunshine too; for the most part we have had the dreariest wet weather.

Bluebells and bookbinding

We have had a peculiar May this year, as I write this the sun is shining as we would expect but earlier in the month we had miserable, grey, cold dreary weather which cast a gloom over everything. The bluebells have been lovely but not so plentiful as previous years. On one of our dog walks we spied a fox near the canal path. We watched as she made her way to a dense patch of brambles and wondered if she had any hungry cubs to feed. The young fox illustration comes from “A Book of Days”, a birthday book I illustrated for Blackie and Son Ltd.

We had a very pleasant visit from artist friend Celeste Goulding, who had traveled to England on holiday from Australia. You may remember Celeste from a previous post? This time we enjoyed an actual rather than a virtual cup of tea. It was so nice to meet her in person.

Work has been busy, getting design collections ready for Surtex, an annual trade fair in New York. I did however find the time to attend a bookbinding workshop with Glenn Malkin, a bookbinder from East Yorkshire. Glenn is an amazing and inspirational craftsman who has a bindery called Signature Bindings Glenn specializes in affordable bindings and repairs, journals and fine bindings. His website contains useful information about forthcoming workshops and events as well as showcasing his award winning designer bindings.

In the one-day workshop we managed to complete three books. One wrap around binding, one Japanese stab binding and a little single section cased binding. All the materials were supplied including the lovely marbled papers. I was especially pleased with the book, which utilized part of an old map, an idea I am sure I will use again. Maybe next time I will remember that as this structure is covered with a map it has a front, back a head and a tail. I managed to create a back and a front the same way up but would have preferred the back to be the front, although in Japan it would have worked perfectly! Finally I have been creating an online print shop with Society6, the shop currently offers art prints and stretched canvases, and I hope to add more images in due course.

And the winner is...........

Hi everyone, as promised I had to pick a winner for my blog giveaway today and the first name out of the hat was Beth Niquette. So, if Beth emails me her postal address I will send my book across the big blue yonder. Thank you so much to everyone who entered and took time to help out with some market research, I am very grateful for your input. I am sorry this is a very short blog post, I am super busy, cutting and sticking and sewing and designing in a last minute dash for a trade fair. The photo above shows a small sample of an incredible bargain bag of odds and ends I bought recently in a clearance sale. In total 90 spools of assorted thread for £5 and a big bag of buttons for £1, a bag of zips and a bag of ribbons also for £1 each! Don't you just love a bargain?

Children's Book Giveaway

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments you left about my children's book. It has been very heartwarming to read them, I really do appreciate your visits. This week I am hosting my own giveaway open to anyone who cares to enter. I have a signed copy of “White is the Moon” to give to you but first, I hope you will help me in a little market research. I have recently had some postcards printed, there are two sets available in my Etsy shop and I am wondering which people will like the best? So, if you would like a free, signed copy of my book please leave a comment below and say which animal postcard appeals to you the most.

I have always loved frogs, though I know that many hate them, it was lovely to see so many tadpoles whilst walking yesterday. We have been experiencing very heavy rain and cold, wintry weather but yesterday saw a bit if sunshine so we put on our dog walking boots and headed to the fields. The rain has made everything look so fresh and green, cowslips and primroses in flower, every cloud has a silver lining I suppose!

I will choose a winner on Wednesday the 2nd of May, so bye for now and good luck.