A present to myself

I recently treated myself to some hand made metallic watercolours from The Art Spirits, who have an Etsy shop as well as their own website.  The paints just contain pigment and a binder and are made in the UK.  I had previously bought a silver and a gold watercolour from them so I knew they were really good quality, creamy, easy to use paints.  I used the gold a lot last year and it was so much better than any of the branded gouache/watercolour paints I have.  I decided to go for a twelve half pan set and happily chose my colours from 'glistening darkness' to 'true silver'.  The paints came beautifully wrapped and packaged, with a few extra little surprises added in.  Even the paper that the individual pans are wrapped in is really pretty, and is linked to the colour inside.  I shall use the papers in collage work this year. 

So, here is my selection, all unwrapped and ready to try.  The pans have a magnetic strip on the base, to stop them sliding around (or falling out).

There are little flower shapes attached to the inside of the tin ready to have the colour swatches added.

Here they are all filled in.  Of course, the photo gives no idea just how metallic the paints are, but they are wonderful!  (I think you can tell that I love them.) 

Happy New Year 2025

Happy New Year and I would like to send you good wishes for 2025. Yet again, the year seems to have gone quickly, so it is time to look forward with plans for 2025 and revisit aims from last year.

(Photo of Big Ben off the TV at midnight)

Read interesting books - this is never a difficult one for me. I have read a total of 88 books this year, including all the Brother Cadfael murder mysteries. Other books I have enjoyed are Divine Might: Goddesses in the Greek myths and Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes; Frank and Red by Matt Coyne; Berserker by Adrian Edmondson, The Socialites by Caroline Lamond and Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher.  I have (of course) also revisited Miss Marple stories by Agatha Christie and various other books by Jane Austen, which I read on a pretty regular basis.  Reading interesting books will definitely continue through 2025. 

(All the photos above and below are from the Care December 2024 course - the Pink Edition)

Be Creative (using what I have) - I have certainly continued this aim, having signed up to lots of interesting online courses. (In fact, I need to actually do some of them this year as I took on rather too many all at the same time!)  There is a Colourplay course, a sketchbook course, a mixed media collage course and a gratitude journal course, amongst a few others! 

I am becoming increasingly fond of watercolours and want to work through the abstract watercolour book I bought. I also would like to work through the collage book.  Over and above all that, I would like to focus on lino printing and gel printing more.

I continued to do the Wednesday slow drawing class with Amy Maricle and loved that quiet and relaxing hour, so that will be continued.  I am also enjoying using pen and watercolour together, so I hope to develop that further. I completed the Whimsies, Words and Watercolours course, with Joanne Sharpe and enjoyed learning how to create interesting lettering styles. Colour swatching continues to be one of my favourite things to do and this course included quite a lot, so I was in my element.  I have bought a few more supplies (of course!) but I have used many supplies I had but had forgotten about, so that has been good.  I am starting to notice what supplies I use the most and what I can possibly donate, which leads me nicely on to...

Get rid of or donate things I no longer want or need - I have done really well this year, probably halving my book collection and donating lots of things to charity, to let someone else enjoy them.  I need to continue this into 2025 as I still have far too much stuff.  I would like tidier areas and spaces so this will continue to be a focus.  It isn't something I find particularly easy to do (as I am a hoarder!), but I am encouraged by my progress so far.

Take more notice of nature - I have done this through gardening as well as when I am walking home after work, or walking anywhere, enjoying the changing seasons.  Birdsong is a delight to me and I never fail to be uplifted wherever I hear this. The mixed media art journaling course (Wanderlust) often focuses on nature, so this also encourages me to get out and be more aware.  I have pressed some flowers and leaves from the garden, in order to be able to use them in my journal.  

Sadly, I haven't visited any other gardens this year either, which is something I do enjoy, so I would like to put this right in 2025. I still have these two gardens on my list: York Gate near Leeds (described as a beautiful Arts and Crafts garden) and The Manor at Hemingford Grey, near Ely, (which was the home of Lucy M Boston who wrote the Green Knowe stories) so I must make an effort and get out there.

Those aims are now plans for 2025 and it will be interesting to review them again this time next year.

I hope 2025 will be a good one for us all.

Happy Christmas 2024

For those who celebrate, may I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  My photos are of some of the Christmas cards I made this year.

As seems to have become traditional on my Christmas post:  here is the quote from one of my favourite Christmas carols, "It came upon the midnight clear", written by Edmund Sears in 1849.

"Yet with the woes of sin and strife

The world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel-strain have rolled

Two thousand years of wrong;

And man, at war with man, hears not 

The love song which they bring;

O hush the noise, ye men of strife,

And hear the angels sing." 

I wish the men of strife would hush and there could be some peace in the world.

To end on a positive, I quote from Desiderata (a 1927 prose poem by Max Ehrmann): 

"...And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy."

May I wish you a happy, healthy and peaceful festive season.

Wanderlust 2024 - weeks forty-one to forty-nine - Alternatives

The last theme of the art journal course this year was Alternatives.  For the first page of the theme, we could create different substrates to work on.  I used gesso mixed with Plaster of Paris to give me a textured background and then had fun using inktense pencils and mark making with acrylic pens on the top.

We used collage and pressed flower petals for the next page and added extra colour to the petals with acrylic paint.

I really enjoyed creating the elements for week forty-three.  We had to go for a walk or go into the garden and notice what colours we were drawn to.  We then made little numbered swatches of the colours and a description of what provided that colour.  On the right, we used window envelopes to display pressed leaves. The vibrant pink was from Salvia Cerro Potosi.

Rust dyeing was used in the collage background here.  The photos are of my Dad, aged about four on the left, my Granny in her twenties towards the top and my Mum aged fifteen just below her. I also did some journaling about some of my memories of them.

The page took a long time, but was enjoyable to do.  We created interesting stamps using string wrapped round cardboard and lids from bottles.  these were then stamped onto various papers and cotton material.  We made a patchwork from all these papers and hand sewed them together.  The photo which is 'trapped' behind tracing paper is of my Granny, Mum (at the front on the right) and her brothers, David and Robert. 

Another enjoyable week, making 'zines' from one sheet of paper, collaged onto, painted and illustrated with stamps, images or whatever you wanted to add, to make these little books.  I chose two of my favourite songs, 'What a wonderful world' and 'What a difference a day makes' for my zines.  I then made the envelopes and decorated them using watercolour swatches.

Dyeing material with plants and flowers was the next lesson.  I didn't have enough of anything to be able to use flowers or onion skins etc. However, I did have some walnut granules, so I used them as a dye and then attached some of the material to journal cards.

The artist's musings week was using stabilo all pencil (which is water soluble) and watercolours.  The teacher had incorporated collage in her page, but I was happy with my simple version. 

The final week was a round up and a bit of reflection, thinking of what we enjoyed, creative breakthroughs, what we would like to do more of next year.  I used a patchwork of gel printed pieces and made a tag flap on the page.  I carved a small birds in flight stamp which is on the tag.  I would like to do more printing (lino and gel), collage and loose watercolour and ink drawing, all activities I really enjoyed this year. 

On to Wanderlust 2025, which starts in January. 

A beautiful piece - relax and enjoy

 This is the most beautiful piece of music, 'Ave Maris Stella' by Edvard Grieg, sung by Voces8.  It will provide just a few minutes of peace in this busy world.

In case the upload doesn't work for you for some reason, here is the link.

Enjoy!

Exhibitions at Birmingham (part two) - Victorian Radicals

The other exhibition we saw while in Birmingham was Victorian Radicals at the City Museum and Gallery.  There are some really good stills of the exhibition on the site and much better photos than mine!  This exhibition again featured Pre-Raphaelite paintings and drawings, but also ceramics, sculpture, enamels, jewellery, stained glass, textiles and clothes, from the Victorian age. Above is Paolo and Francesca by Alexander Munro.

This small ink drawing is King Arthur and the Weeping Queens by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  Again, being able to get up close meant we could see so much detail.

This is a sketch for a textile design by William Morris and it was beautiful.  

One of William's daughters, May Morris was a skilled embroider and helped in Morris and Co.  Her embroidery is featured on this dress.

You can see it a little more clearly here.

This necklace was much brighter in real life.

A sketch of a boy used in Rossetti's The Beloved.  The painting is in the Tate here.

'The Last of England' by Ford Madox Brown is full of details, from the cabbages hanging at the front, to the children with their mother behind the main couple and the child inside the mother's shawl.  Apparently the pink ribbons took the artist four weeks to paint.

Kate Bunce's 'The Keepsake' featured the most stunning dress materials although you can't really see them that well in my photo. 

I do like the Persian pottery of William de Morgan - all those lovely blues!  (The 'Medea' by his wife was featured in the Scent exhibition in my previous post).

Wouldn't these tiles look lovely in a bathroom or kitchen?

This exhibitions showcased some wonderful work by some very talented artists and craftspeople.  I was really pleased to have seen it and it was well worth the entrance price (£11.00).   The people we met in Birmingham were really helpful, (particularly when we had gone the wrong way to the train station) and were very friendly too.

Exhibitions at Birmingham (part one) - Scent and the Pre-Raphaelites

 Last Saturday, we headed off to Birmingham to see two exhibitions, one called Scent and the Pre-Raphaelites at The Barber Institute and the other called Victorian Radicals at Birmingham City Museum and Art gallery.  Our journeys there and back were awful as although we went by train, earlier trains had been cancelled so we were all squashed in like sardines and far from comfortable.  We have decided not to try travelling on a Saturday in future!

However, the journey aside, the exhibitions were really good.  I had last visited the Barber Institute around seventeen years ago.  We were able to really get up close and see lots of details that are missed when you look at reproductions in books. There were eleven paintings featured in this exhibition, some lent from other galleries.

Chris was fascinated by this painting 'Thoughts of the past' by John Roddam Spencer Stanhope.    

When you can get close, you notice the veneer missing off the drawer, lots of items on the table, the reflections in the mirror and all the details.  

Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti was one of the paintings which first got me interested in the Pre-Raphaelites.  He painted eight versions of this subject.  In this version, she has red hair.

'Medea' by Evelyn de Morgan was another painting full of fascinating details.

Some of the frames were as elaborate as the actual paintings they housed.

The Blind Girl by John Everett Millais had some incredibly vibrant colours.

This beautifully observed harebell is on the left on the painting, near the girl's hand. There was a podium where you could press a button and a scent would be released to go with a painting. One for this painting did smell like fresh grass, or hay.

I didn't much care for the central figure in Frederick Sandys' painting, 'Gentle Spring' but the details of the flowers and dandelions really grabbed my attention.

The gallery also houses this beautiful portrait by Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun of 'Countess Golovina'.  There is more information about the painting here. (This face reminds me of an actor, Julia Sawalha.) 

This is another lusciously coloured painting, The Blue Bower by Dante Gabriel Rossetti of one of his muses, Fanny Cornforth.  No reproduction can do the colours justice, as they really are vibrant.  I particularly like the blue and white background. 

Victorian Radicals will follow...

A frosty morning

The cold snap continues and I ventured into the garden armed with my camera this morning. I know this isn't really that cold, compared with other countries, but as our autumn had been so mild recently, this has taken me a bit by surprise. Above are buddleia leaves.

This is Rose Dannahue, which was still flowering in my previous post. 

Blueberry Blue Pearl.  The frost patterns are beautiful to look at. I had just finished insulating some of my pots before the cold weather arrived, so I was very grateful for that,

Rose Charles de Mills. 

Hydrangea Annabelle, who usually features on this blog with her gorgeous white flowers in summer.  However, I think her faded flowers tipped with frost are just as lovely, albeit in a different way. Apparently Storm Bert is on his way this weekend, but temperatures are due to rise.  No wonder we talk about the weather so much here in the UK - it is always so changeable...