A little Treat......

A few weeks ago I decided to give myself a little treat.  I have been waiting with great

excitement for my parcel to arrive and today it did!

So here they are........

My beautiful handmade, hand painted boots made by Tracey at 

Pandora Picture Boots in Glastonbury.

I am a very happy bunny!!!!

I'm Lichen this!!

I have had a bit of a break this last couple of weeks, a week in beautiful Devon

 then a week with my family in Northern Ireland.

Whilst taking a walk around the country lanes in Devon I 

came across some beautiful lichen growing on a wooden fence.

It is very reminiscent of Barnacles growing on a boat hull or rocks on the shore!

 

I also came across this very dessicated Hydrangea head.

 

It was great to find that this head had been missed when deadheading and had 

been left to decay,  allowing nature through death to create a beautiful delicate 

ethereal flower head.

Final Doodle....

So, the final Doodle lesson with Traci at 

Strathmore Workshops was all about painting

whimsical faces.  Not something I am very confident

about doing!!

So having taken a deep breath I took the plunge and here is

my piece..... her eye is very large and not at all how

I meant it to turn out!!

I'm really pleased with the overall look of the piece and the colour

scheme and the fact that her face shape is pretty good and her

hair &lips worked out quite well too.  

I've really enjoyed having a go at the workshop and will continue to

use the techniques Traci has shared with us.

A Weekend Away

A bright and sunny Saturday morning saw us heading up to Hereford for 

a much needed weekend away with a small detour to a log cabin showroom!!

We stayed Leominster ( pronounced Lemster!) and, having feasted on

one of the biggest breakfasts we have ever had we

had a wander round the town looking

at all the beautiful black and white Tudor buildings.

I loved this sign on the pub opposite the hotel we stayed in!!

Sadly this poor woman in the sign was probably Sarah Leeke  of Leominster being 

ducked in one of the last recorded instances of this practise around 1817.

 Once we had finished in Leominster we headed down to Hereford,

to have a wander round the town and the Cathedral grounds.  

The beautiful Cathedral door with all it's iron scroll work.

Statue of Edward Elgar in the Cathedral grounds.

We found this beautiful piece of wall in the courtyard along with lots of old

gravestones which made up the pathways.

Lots of inspiration found to draw on over the weekend.

Carrying On.......

Carrying on with the watercolour paint and marker doodles.......  

For this piece I taped four sheets of A3 watercolour paper together to 

give me a much bigger working area.

As I find it quite hard to just doodle freely I thought it would

be a good idea to put a favourite piece of music on, close my eyes and 

do the initial watercolour doodle marks without

looking at my work too often to see what results

I would get.

So not only do I have one big piece of work, but when 

broken up I also have four smaller pieces of work

to take inspiration from as well.

This time I tried to write using an ink pen, unfortunately the ink

 bled when it was used on the watercolour paint.

So note to self.....use marker pens on these areas!!

These doodles are going to be the starting point for a series of works

on Goddesses, weather they become part of the background

or part of the Goddess bodies themselves has yet to be explored

in more depth.

In each piece you can once again see the leaf/flower form which

is the enduring theme through out all these doodles.

I love the soft green colour within all these pieces and 

leaf shape that I have chosen to use this time.

Doodle With Watercolour & Markers

So I've moved onto lesson two of my Strathmore Workshop. 

( See link on the right )

This one involves free painting with watercolours, a bit of stamping,

doodling with markers.  

 I love the soft colours in this one and the way the leaf doodle draws the eye.

I can see this translating well into stitch!

This second one has a much more cutting edge urban feel to it, more like

graffiti.  The leaf shape is not quite so prominent this time.  Though I initially

disliked the end result, the more I look at it the more it is 

growing on me!

Following On....

Following on from the previous doodle ........

 This is fast becoming a highly addictive way to create backgrounds!

 Having completed the first one there was no choice but to have another go so ..........

Again created using the same techniques as before though

with bolder leaf shapes.

This final piece was created using the take off sheet that
I used to print off the excess paint on my stencils
once they had been used on the main piece.

A final quick coat of acrylic wax sealed the art work and ensured the
Markel stick didn't smudge or rub off onto the
other pieces of work.

There is definitely a lot of potential to turn this from paint into stitch!