Winter Woodland Walk

It has been so wet for so long and some of the woodlands near me are looking particularly lush and mossy – elves and fairies peeping out from behind every tree and fern.

To give everyone in my daughter’s family a much needed break from the rigours of home learning, I have taken two of my grandchildren out for a ‘keep-your-distance-walk’ a few times.

Little Miss M and Master R love to draw and grasp every opportunity, so when they found some chalk on the ground ….

This is one of the cyber characters that inhabit Master R’s imagination

and then – throwing the chalk at the tree to make marks was a good game too – who could make the highest mark, how far away could they stand and still hit the tree?

(Yes I did knit the bobble hat 🙂 )

And something to melt any Granny’s heart – a card from Little Miss M

She had made one for both of her Grannies. Awww! ❤

You might remember that Little Miss M and I are walking 500 miles together – You can go to this link to see a wonderful walk we did in March 2019.

We did not add many miles to our total last year (I wonder why?!) but we are both determined to do more this year.

Our total to date is 133.5 miles, only 366.5 to go!

Have you been able to go out for any walks this week?

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The Stitchbook – Ta Dah!

I signed up for this project in May 2019

150 of us joined Helen Birmingham’s STITCHBOOK COLLECTIVE and the journey began.

Who knew when we got our first box of goodies in September 2019 how important this project was going to be for keeping us busy, creative and connected.

Each month for 12 months we recieved a kit through our letter box, and even though we had paid for it, many of us felt like it was a present arriving through the ether to cheer us up – happy post!

We chatted via our Facebook group, encouraging and inspiring one another

We were initially working towards exhibiting the books at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show. This was cancelled, but we kept on stitching – the cancellation gave some of us the much needed time to finish the project.

I get very excited at the beginning of a project. I loved the feeling as inspiration flooded in with each new box – but then I go off at a tangent and make a multitude of my own experiments and lose focus.

I am so good at NOT finishing things – anyone else out there like me?

I wonder if I ever would have pushed myself to complete it if it hadn’t been for Helen’s flexibility and gentle encouragement to get me over the finish line.

The covers done and the book bound together with bead spacers – it sat there – it did not feel finished – bizarrely, it did not feel mine.

It was a huge effort for me to focus on the covers, make them to Helen’s specific instructions and get the book exhibition-ready. The front cover has tabs on it so that it can be displayed for exhibition. The effort to get the covers made took away some of the joy, so it had to sit in a corner for a while.

Seeing other finished books online and a few text messages with Cathy (thank you Cathy!) gave me the kick of enthusiasm I needed – out came the beads, the stamps and the paint brush

and here it is – Exhibition-ready!

AND £3,344.00 has been raised by Helen and the purchasers of her kits for the mental health charity, MIND. 

Feel good project all round.

You can see other posts about this book by typing Stitchbook into the SEARCH box and here is a video of the finished book.

A HUGE thank you to Helen Birmingham for this project and to the other members of THE STITCHBOOK COLLECTIVE community.

An Arty Week

You might know that I am drawn to all things Japanese (here are some links to my posts about my trip to Japan in 2015) and have been most of my adult life. So when I saw a course at a highly respected art school entitled Abstract Painting and Wabi Sabi I just had to book a place.

You can Google ‘Wabi Sabi’ to find a definition and will get a few different results, I fear it might lose something in translation but in the context of abstract works of art this is my own best shot: the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi, briefly/loosely translated as the celebration of materials and imperfection, leaving things unfinished for the viewer to complete it in their own experience of the piece. 

I learnt by doing, that it is also about immersing oneself in the materials, the properties of the materials and about how ones body and inner senses respond to the materials.

After booking this course, I heard about an exhibition in which a blogging friend, Alastair Duncan was exhibiting his interactive weaving, which I talked about in this post.

AND THEN!

ANTONY GORMLEY at the Royal Academy – I just had to go and see that!

To fit all this in I stayed in an Air BnB in Horsham in West Sussex, which had free parking and was just a 10 minute walk to the train station. In just over an hour I could be in Central London.

I drove the 3 hours to  Horsham last Saturday.

Visited the Espacio Gallery on Sunday – which I will tell you about in a future post.

There I met with 2 other members of the Stitchbook Collective – Oh SO lovely to make these creative connections!!

On Monday I travelled up to the Royal Academy for the Antony Gormley exhibition, which was absolutely amazing of course, but not quite so impactful as his exhibition in 2007 at the Hayward Gallery which I often think of and stays with me on some deep inner level.

And then on Tuesday I started my Wabi Sabi voyage of discovery with Helen Turner in Partridge Green, just a 20 minute drive each day from my cosy self-catering pad.

I loved every minute! I got home yesterday.

So much to tell you about. So many photos to sift through!

Sunday Calm

 

meditate

doodle and relax

sunday calm

~

 

Every Day Art

I just saw this on my #seriescd Instagram page and it excited me so much I just had to share it with you

Since starting the doodles in my 6″ x 6″ sketch book, to travel with ,I have become immersed in continuing with a Series using a CD as a starting point. I have to do one as I wake up and can’t settle to sleep at night without doing another.

And today I got some Posca Pens in the post!

Eeek!!!!!

they show up so well on the black card – they sort of glow!

Not cheap at £14.99 for 8 pens but so worth it.

I am on my second sketch book – they each have 40 pages in them ….

Must go – I have doodles to doodle doodle doo!

Whimsical Collage: 2

Back in November I went to a fabulous 4 day Mixed Media Collage Workshop led by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and Nathalie Kalbach. See my first blog post about it here.

It was such fun getting messy and creating colourful papers in readiness for our first 6 collages. We used pages from old books we had been supplied with – books that would otherwise have gone to landfill. The print adds a layer of texture and interest.

And the books themselves make perfect little sketchbooks to carry around for those odd doodling moments

Julie and Nathalie have a great way of introducing the theory of colour and composition in fun bite-sized exercises. In this one we were mixing tones of one colour using black and white

no paint was wasted, we cleaned our brushes on more paper

and then experimented with stamps, building up layers of marks, pattern and colour – my memory is a of a frenzy of fun and activity as we all dashed off all these wonderfully inspiring pieces without really thinking

In this way we gradually built up supplies and confidence, moving towards creating pieces we were pleased with.

The background of this one is the newspaper I was using to protect the cloth beneath. I think at this stage it reminds me of textiles …. still more to do in those blue squares, but I’m not sure what yet……

I wondered about adding a little knot of silk remnant

and maybe some stitching …… hmmm …. not there yet.

Julie’s first Blog post about the workshop  explains the format of Day One and Two.

There is a picture of me (the 8th one in) in pink Tshirt, working away, ( and a couple more later on) plus loads of pictures of fellow students and their work. This blog post alone is inspiring enough to keep me busy for weeks as I remember all I learnt and discovered.

And then we were ready to work towards some finished pieces.

Next up –  working in a series: six collages on 6″ x 6″ card

Julie’s second Blog Post: Whimisical Collage in the UK Part Two shows lots of these from the group. You might be able to spot mine in amongst them.

The best part – building the layers with stamps and oil pastel lines and scribbles

The next part is wondering if they are finished or not

The 4 on the left have a story attached to them, but that is for another day ……

Joining in with Kate and her Scrap Happy January band of happy scrappers.

 

 

 

Letter

My entry in our One-a-Week Photo Challenge. 

The Letter A

I came across the Japanese Art of Paper Cutting called Notan, which uses positive and negative space. Go to Pinterest to see the most amazing examples.

The photo was taken using the ‘Sketch’ setting on my Nikon D5200.

Step – by – step:

A piece of A5 coloured paper and an A4 background

It needs to go on a coloured background

Couldn’t resist a bit of doodling, and then it needed to go on a black background. Now some of the doodling looks like cut-outs.

This is such a good activity to do with children aged 4 onwards.

The designs would make great greetings cards.

Please leave your link in the comments – Cathy and I always look forward to seeing each interpretation of the prompt – she has a corker this week!

Paper Games with the Boys

Last week there was an Inset Day at the school so the boys, Big Bro 7 and Little Bro 5 came to me. They absolutely LOVE playing drawing consequences – I expect you know the game .. but just in case you don’t I’ll describe it.

Tear A4 paper into half, lengthways.

Each person has a strip of paper.

Without showing the others, draw a hat at the top of the paper and then fold the paper over to hide the drawing except for a couple of lines to show where the face should go. The papers then get passed to the next person.

Everyone draws a face and folds the paper again, leaving the lines of the neck showing.

Next the body is drawn, leaving lines for the placement of the legs.

The legs are drawn leaving lines for the feet.

Five lines are put at the bottom and the paper is passed round for one letter to be added in any space at each turn. This will create the name of the character.

Then we all open the paper and laugh at what we have drawn, and try to pronounce the names. We usually have to play at least 4 rounds before they want to move on to something else.

Next we hid our names in a secret design.

In pencil, draw a central line and write your name in clear bold letters, touching the line.

Turn the paper round and draw a mirror image of each letter, touching the original letter.

Turn the paper so that the first letter is at the bottom of the page as in the picture.

With a pen or crayon, start to pick out lines and features to make a symmetrical pattern.

Keep going and make it as intricate as you can

The boys got into the secret element of it and went for further disguise. I have smudged out their names but I hope you get the idea

The idea is that the pattern looks like a design, it is only when it is held sideways and the right way up that the name can be seen. Or you can just continue creating the design until the letters are entirely obscured.

After all the drawing we got out under that clear blue sky …. to the woods and beyond …

but more of that tomorrow as our Photo Challenge prompt is WALK

Playful Butterfly

 

When I took Little Miss M and Little Bro to the park, after school yesterday, there was a Red Admiral butterfly that seemed to want to play with them. It kept fluttering back to them, around their heads, landing near to them: on posts, the grass and the climbing net – this went on for at least 10 minutes – it even landed on Little Bro’s arm at one point.

A school friend joined in and all three were first chasing, then leaping and dancing around with delight, then creeping up slowly and at one point the butterfly was on a post and all three were putting a finger on the post edging closer to the butterfly to see if it would hop on, totally focussed on that moment when time seemed to stand still.

 

Magical, utterly magical.

But – did I have my camera with me – no!

A beautiful memory to hold in my mind’s eye.

As I was writing this I remembered that over 25 years ago, when I was doing a City and Guilds Embroidery course, there was a competition

to create a greetings card with butterflies as the theme.

(apologies for the quality of the photos, something has gone wrong with my ‘Photos’ programme and I am unable to do any editing – so far long phone calls to Apple, whilst they have tried to sort it out – with more to come)

We had to show our folder of workings as well (click on any photo to see it bigger)

and after much experimentation, this was the card I submitted into the competition, it has lost a few star sequins

these were some of my experiments made on thick watercolour paper

Well – I won!

It is the only competition I have ever won, so I’ve kept that folder dear to me and never used the cards – I’m wondering if I should send them now and let go ………..

……………   No, I can’t just yet.

Have you ever won a competition? Or danced with a butterfly in the park?

Monster

monsters creep
deep from our psyche
hearts racing

~

Ronovan’s prompts: Creep and Race

Photo Challenge Prompt: Monster

Pictures drawn on the ferry ride back from Brownsea Island last week. All drawn by Little Miss M, aged 4, apart from the one top left, by Master R aged 7.

To join in with the Photo Challenge or the Phaiku Challenge which combines the two challenges, please leave a link in the comments.

Next week’s Photo prompt

HUNT

Check

~

home schooling:

free rein on the quest

for knowledge

~

Last week Miss E and I went on the train to the Lymington Museum and Art Gallery where 22 Home Schooled children gathered to take part in the most wonderful workshop based on an exhibition of work by many different artists all creating pictures of trees.

The children were invited to leap into a painting and imagine themselves there – what could they hear, see, touch, smell. What would they need to take with them. how did they feel whilst they were there.

They then chose a painting to look at for 10 seconds then turn away and draw from memory, then a different painting to draw just the outlines for 5 minutes, then 5 minutes to use colour. After that we went to the craft room to create a printing block of their drawing in polystyrene, to print on coloured paper.

On the train I was allowing the movement of the train to create wiggly lines in my sketch book as a quirky diary/memory of our day.

Miss E noticed that the rain on the train windows made similar lines when travelling down the windows

which in turn were similar to the lines of the branches of the trees in one of the paintings

I just LOVE the way her creative mind flows.

Joining in with our 52 Week Photo Challenge, this week’s prompt CHECK

and

Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge, prompt words: REIN and QUEST.

I’m a little late this week as I have been away for a few days visiting my son and his three girls and then to Chelsea Flower Show with my sister! We had the BEST time – more of that soon. A highlight of the day was meeting up with fellow blogger Dorris – Wow! That was really special!

iHanna’s PostCard Swap

I have just signed up for iHanna’s Post Card swap again. We each make 10 postcards  for the beginning of May, to send on a particular date, and Hanna gives us 10 addresses from all over the world, so we all get 10 handmade pieces of art back. It is great fun.

The photo above is of a Post Card I sent a couple of years ago. If you put ‘Post Card Swap’ in the SEARCH box you will see my entries for other years.

Miss E absolutely loves to see all the cards coming in from different countries, and this year we will both make the cards together.

I could not copy Hanna’s email exactly, with all her amazing graphics but here is the essence of it.

Hi from Sweden! This is your invitation to join my PARTY – read on!

Dear Sandra!
Hi my old friend Sandra, I don’t know if you’ve missed my Newsletter but it’s been waaaay too long since I wrote you. I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better. If you’ve visited the blog recently you might have seen that you as a subscriber to the iHanna Newsletter have been entered into a fun giveaway!? Awesome huh?

In my next Newsletter I will annonce TWO winners of THREE months of the class The Journey Within – so do not unsubscribe, but rather forward this e-mail to a friend so they can get a chance to win to by signing up…

Also you’ll help me spread the word about the awesome postcard swap:
Join us right now for SPRING 2016 SWAPPING – time to make 10 awesome cards and send them to people from all over the world!
The DIY Postcard Swap
I’ve hosted this fun & big online party twice each year for many years now. The party starts online, but carries into the Real World and spreads a lot of happiness and joy to the homes of hundreds of people… I’d love if you could join us.

“The party” is what I’m calling my lovely brain child the DIY Postcard Swap this year. Many of you subscribe every time I host it so you might already know that you get to create 10 postcards and receive 10 postcards back from 10 other people around the world! It’s global, it’s fun and it’s easy to sign up.

All you need to do is read the rules and then decide if this is something that you’d like to do. Your postcards doesn’t have to be finished until the end of April, so you’ve got plenty of time. Sign up now:

SIGN UP FOR THE DIY POSTCARD SWAP

Questions? All the rules and a quick-to-read FAQ can be found on my blog. If you have further questions just let me know. Also, check it out on instagram: #diypostcardswap

wishing you a happy Easter
lots of love,
/Hanna

Wanna take a peek into my art journal? I hope you’ll agree that it’s someswhat of a
Visual Feast……

Do take a look at her blog iHanna, if you like art or crafting you can find so many tips and inspiration there. And if you sign up to her Newsletter you have a chance to win her online class.

Outline

 

when planning to paint

lift ideas from Pinterest,

paint with abandon! 

~

In the absence of a light box, I stuck a slice of a blood orange to my window, showing the outline of all the little segments.

And here a lemon slice, photo taken with the iPad

This was inspired by seeing Claudia Horsey’s watercolour on Pinterest.

I started copying Claudia’s design, using felt tip pens and crayons, thinking I would use the drawing to make a greetings card. I liked the effect so much, I went out and bought some citrus fruits to do a design of my own

Don’t you just love the colours…

The blood oranges left a print on the paper

which gave me an idea…..I had fun playing around ….

adding pen outlines and then shading with colouring pencils ….

which turned out to be a very relaxing way to doodle.

Joining in with Ronovan’s Weekly Haiku Challenge, prompt words: LIFT and PLAN

The two sentences work like this:

when planning to paint, lift ideas from Pinterest

lift ideas from Pinterest, paint with abandon

With the opposing ideas of planning and not planning.

Also entering our Weekly Photo Challenge, see PAGE for details

Next week the Photo Prompt is:

SPRING

In a Vase on St David’s Eve

You might know that I am half Welsh and very proud to be so. It is St. David’s Day tomorrow, and in celebration I have picked some daffodils and popped them in a jam-jar decorated with red washi tape, along with some arum leaves and muscari.

The sun is shining today, and no biting wind – hurray! So I was able to photograph the vase outside, next to my lawn (which needs mowing!)

The framed photograph is of my Welsh Grandad, George Owen Absalom OBE. He was a wonderful grandfather to me and introduced me to gardening, in fact when he became headmaster in the school in Woebley, Herefordshire, in 1924, he introduced gardening lessons and the children grew vegetables for the school kitchens. During the Second World War he had the pupils digging up his own garden to grow food for the village.

The dragon card is one I drew with oil pastels for one of my Mum’s birthdays. I found it when we cleared out her house. She has dementia now so won’t have a clue about St. David’s Day, but I will take her daffodils tomorrow as I do every year.

joining in with Cathy’s glorious meme at Rambling in the Garden, where an international garden party happens every Monday.

https://ramblinginthegarden.wordpress.com/2016/02/29/in-a-vase-on-monday-promises/

~ 🐉 ❤️ 💚 ❤️ 🐉 ~

(I can not find a daffodil, Welsh Dragon or Welsh flag on the iPad ☹ )

Here is my second garden shot of the border I am planning to record each month throughout the year. It looks exactly the same as in January (https://daffodilwild.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/garden/)

so to be more interesting, I have taken the photo from a spot a few steps back to put it context with Pippin, the caravan and the apple tree.

 I feel a bit fed up looking at this picture as, for ages, I have been trying to prepare things to move Pippin forward and put a fruit cage where she now stands. I need help to do this and had my son E,  Big Bro and Little Bro coming on Saturday afternoon to make some progress BUT i had to cancel as I fell foul to yet another **********! virus.

Please, oh please let me be WELL! The sun is shining and I long to be out there!

Art Walk on Wednesday

A couple of weeks ago I went back to Cerne Abbas to do the circular walk again with art as my focus. (you can see more of the walk here, here and here)

The Giant itself is a piece of landscape art

humans being drawn to make a mark on any surface they come across, even scrawling on barn doors.Whilst walking I noticed shapes and outlines with doodles in mind

… imagine that stag-horn-like petal on the left in a mandala or doodle

Joining Cee’s Flower of the Day: Knapweed

Wood lying around, like sculptures reminded me of Anthony Caro’s work.

Bits that show signs of human history intrigue me, as well as the interaction of other creatures – can you see the cobweb in the picture below?

Hints of Barbara Hepworth here

Two Figures (Menhirs) 1964 Dame Barbara Hepworth 1903-1975 Purchased 1964 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T00703

And Chris Drury here.

If you click on the photo above it will take you to my Photo Page where you can see it in more detail, especially the lichen.

The picture above is a work by Chris Drury called the Wheel of the Year

~

Every so often I did look up and out at the glorious landscape

But mostly my camera was set to Macro.

Have you enjoyed any walks this week?

In 2 Vases on Monday

Last week I used a tall plastic pink vase, but readers could not tell from the photos that it was plastic

So here it is empty and lying flat with two more. I’m hoping these photos give you a better idea

The little mauve flowers – some sort of aster I think (?) are self seeded, as are the marigolds and the hypericum. I sat them on a plastic tablecloth with grass printed on it – funky? tacky? bonkers? – yes all three probably – but hopefully fun.

And things even seem to self-seed in my houseplants

Any ideas? The leaves have speckles on them.

And thenI just had to have a play with that madget gadget on my camera

Now I need an extra day in the week so that I can take time to draw this ivy.

See the last photo much larger on the PHOTOS page here.

I’m even wondering if this photo, printed very large, say poster size, would look good as a framed picture to go above my fireplace – hmmmm. What do you think?

Hop on over to Cathy’s blog to see some more stunning vases on Monday.

Additional info:

I bought the vases about 20 years ago and can not remember where from, but the wonders of Google images – and LOOK! There are simply masses of them around apparently!

Camera effect: I have a Nikon D5200. The effect is built in. It has a setting on the dial which says ‘EFFECTS’ and the one I used is the ‘Colour Sketch’ effect.

I presume you can create the same effect in Photoshop.

Purple

 

Bluedaisyz Weekly Photo Challenge: PURPLE

Master R has asked for a blanket to be mainly purple and green – a bit of a challenge for me. I have persuaded him to let me add a few more colours.

I have started colouring a page in ‘The Enchanted Forest” in purples to play with colour combos

Have you seen these books

very relaxing to do on holiday

Mandala-la-la

 

At last I’m out the other side! Energy has returned Hurray!

The upside of lounging about for 16 days is that I got to play in my sketchbook

Alisa Burke’s Mandala Magic, online course could not have come at a better time

some are still work in progress

some are complete

and they have all been supremely satisfying and relaxing to draw

I never know what will happen as I start drawingit is fun to let it flow and develop, sometimes over a few days

and because it is only a doodle and a sketch I can just do it knowing I can throw them in the bin if I don’t like them or tear them up and use in collages.

I like the last two best – do you have a favourite?

If you would like to have a go Alisa is holding a Summer Sale of her Classes. I can highly recommend them, full of inspirational videos and clear, easy to follow tips and guidelines.

 

Mandala Magic

I am taking part in my first online class.

Dipping my toe in, I have started with Alisa Burke’s mini-tutorial entitled Mandala Magic.

It’s fun, and concentrating on one simple form suits my need to dip in and out according to the weather and other stuff going on right now.

Alisa has a very distinct style and at first I thought my mandalas would turn out looking like hers, but no – not at all – I immediately went off in my own style adding colour from the start. The course provides some wonderful prompts and is hugely inspiring. I’ve started in a small ring bound 6″ square sketch book, so that I can carry it around easily and doodle in odd moments.

I had Miss E and Little Bro here this week. We were mainly in the garden, but needing to dodge the showers we retreated to Pippin (my little caravan in the garden) and did some mandala drawing together.

Here is Miss E’s so far

And Little Bro’s

 

 

 

and because Miss E enjoyed drawing a mandala so much and has a birthday coming up soon I have made her a card that she can continue to embellish herselfAnother experiment for the Etsy shop me thinks – maybe others would enjoy colouring this pattern as well, you never know!

iHanna’s Postcard Swap!

Fifth time! I absolutely LOVE joining in with this international postcard swap – and so does Miss E, my 7 year old granddaughter. I hope she will help me make my 10 cards this year and if anyone would like to send her a card to my address I know she will be thrilled, she keeps all her postcards in a file and we look at a map of the world to see where they all come from.

Here is the picture Miss E drew for the postcard she made in 2012

That’s her in the middle with arms aloft in triumph!

The last Swap I was part of, was in the Spring, and before that in November 2013.

And in April 13 I was lucky enough to receive a card from Hanna – I was thrilled! Can you pick it out?

Sharing creativity across the globe – pathway to peace?

“CREATIVITY BREEDS CONTENT”

If you too would like to join in just click on the link below:

iHanna’s DIY Postcard Swap opens twice a year and it is super fun! Join at at http://www.ihanna.nu/postcard-swap/

 

Go on! It’s FUN!