We come from the land of the ice and snow....

....though perhaps not from the land of the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.... !

I thought I'd put this picture from the BBC website (in case you haven't seen it - if you are outside the UK it won't have been broadcast on your EVERY news bulletin) showing the UK under it's blanket of ice and snow.  It is a NASA picture and quite breathtaking I'm sure you'll agree?

I find myself at home again because of the weather - so am starting on a little mail art project I have decided to work on!  I'll post pictures when I have something to show - the final piece will include some of these flyagaric toadstools!  I have decided to make the piece to look like an illustration in a children's book!  Watch this space! x

More lilies considered....

I have not been able to draw in daylight since the weekend, until today that is (and typically today is very grey and rainy).  I decided to draw some lovely lilies I have in a vase, but just concentrating on the lines - not trying to deal with the shading.  I'm fairly happy with the pictures - it's definitely all good practice!

The perfume from the flowers is almost overwhelming!  I'm waiting for the sneezing to start!

The sun is just trying to break through now, so I'm going to settle down and see if I can work on a painting I started a couple of weeks ago.  I do like Thursdays!

Dashing through the snow...

Well he's probably ambling rather than dashing - here's the polar bear design I have painted for my Christmas cards.  I am busy printing lots off onto Bockingford watercolour inkjet paper and am really quite pleased with the results.  I can recommend the paper as a very reasonably priced way to reproduce your artwork.  You can buy more expensive and, one would assume, better quality inkjet papers but I am really happy with this.  I shall definitely use it again.

Today should be my final push at the Christmas cards, hopefully at the weekend I'll find some time to work on something fresh.  I have got lots of things I want to do...which first though...?

Consider the lilies....

Well, I have to say once again a great big thank you to everybody who took the time to leave such lovely comments after my last entry.  You have all really made me feel positive about my work and I can't thank you enough.

Here are a couple more offerings, first a study of some lilies that I worked on over a few days.  I have resisted the urge to draw over it with pen!  I think I'll leave it the way it is.

The second picture is a quick watercolour sketch I did after a visit to Dunstanburgh Castle in Northumberland.  It shows only a small part of the ruins but there was a tremendous storm gathering, while this tower and the grassy slope that led up to it remained bathed in sunlight.  Not sure how well I captured it but it was beautiful at the time!  Dunstanburgh Castle is extremely dramatic, set on top of a rocky crag with the most stunning beach - Embleton Bay, sweeping away to the north.  Northumberland is my favourite place ever, I go back again and again!

I have also been naughty this week and treated myself to a lovely new book, 'Illustration Play' published by Gingko Press.  Gingko Press publish some great books - real eye candy (I'm speaking with my professional librarian head on now and, as far as I am concerned, 'eye candy' is definitely a technical term in librarian speak) it's always worth keeping an eye on their web site.  I am eagerly awaiting its arrival, I shall tuck myself up this weekend with the book, a pot of tea and some good cake!

While I am here, I'd like to share a photograph I took in Manchester of some street art by Shepard Fairey.  I know anyone who lives in Manchester will be more than familiar with it but it made my day coming across it the way I did.

I think the bags of rubbish, waiting to be collected underneath it, really illustrated how tucked away it was and, of course, how beautiful the piece is.  I stared at it for ages!

I like birds...

I gave spent the weekend trying to come up with ideas for Christmas cards. The pictures have been copied from images found in books but I really enjoyed doing them. I am getting more and more relaxed with my drawing skills now, but really feel I need to loosen up quite a bit! I want to get much more flowy and free with my drawing. I try to put far too much detail in and fiddle around when I should stop.

Until I began this process of rediscovering my creative self, I had forgotten how graphic my art is. When I did my art foundation course (in the late 1980s) I focused on fine art. I feel now I should have focused on graphics. Why did nobody tell me?

Anyway, here are a couple of coloured pencil and ink studies I came up with as card ideas, I'm not going to use these but I quite like the studies anyway. I shall post the actual card design, after I have sent them out to friends and family!

I am also posting an ink and watercolour study I did of some pebbles. I love rubble! If I had been clever at science at school, I would have loved to have studied geology. But I wasn't, so I satisfy myself with a sizeable rubble collection. The picture is of fossils, pebbles, sea-glass and ceramics, found on beaches in Yorkshire and Northumberland.

When I have a minute I will design myself a better banner - the one I have at the moment is rubblish!!