Norfolk Pages

Here are the pages I started when away in Norfolk.  A brilliant addition to my tool kit has been a reservoir brush (also called a waterbrush).  This means I can do water colours sitting in an arm chair! A perfect companion to my ancient watercolour box which was my Dad's. The brush will clean with a few wipes on a paper towel so is ready for a new colour. No good for sweeping washes, but perfect for what I wanted.

I painted the shell whilst away, but added the photo montage and tracing paper seaweed back home.

Freehand copy of Cromer church window (photograph) done with the reservoir brush - not sure how I will develop this yet.  I have to give credit to my Design Matters Creative Sketchbook course for inspiring me with the cut out and adding a page.





No fools here

That's another month done - goodess me, time does fly especially when you are enjoying yourself.

I seem to have had a busy month and last week I seemed to be rushing about from place to place.  But I did manage to get April's pages done, although at the moment they are looking a bit plain. The background is decorated with a spiral lino cut I whizzed off this week.  I'm into spirals at the moment, but more about that another time.  I also spent a day with my friend Sally at her studio at Digswell where she ran a workshop on monoprinting techniques using the heavy etching press - great fun, but really, we only had time to familiarize ourselves with the basic techniques as printmaking is quite a laborious procedure, but with so much potential.  Not sure that it is my method at the moment, more to share from that another time too.

However the excitement of the week has been the first posting day for the Postman's Knock group.

Twelve of us who have blogging connections have entered a 'deal' to send a postcard every fortnight to one of the members of the group on their chosen them.  The first posting date was yesterday, so quite a lot of us received our first postcards this morning.  You can view them here.

My chosed  theme is Windows and here is my card from Penny

Perfectly conveying her Spanish theme.  I haven't heard whether mine has arrived at its destination yet.  fingers crossed that it arrives safely.

Do have a look at the other postcards, I feel I am in such talented company.

Jill

Time Marches on ...

I am a bit tardy getting my March calendar pages posted, but I have actually started it, I have just had an adversion to going through the process of scanning the pages etc.

 I am glad to say good-bye to February - it has been not only a dreary month, but one of restlessness, especially the last couple of weeks.  Every few months I feel as if I am turning another corner in my creative journey so hopefully March will be the beginning of the next phase.

I rather slopped this page together in my new journal - I love filling in the little squares, but my creative energy has been focussed elsewhere. 

Thanks to everyone who was so encouraging after my last blog, ` I quickly came to a decision after writing it.  I have decided not to registar on a college course, but to try to follow my own path taking part in as many workshops as I can, buy books, build up my  local contacts and set myself goals.  When I began this blog with the sub-heading "chronicles of a mature learner" so that is what I am going be doing.  Watch this space.

I took advantage of the sun this afternoon,  so join me and Marvin in the garden.

Have a great weekend,

Jill

A week in retirement

Dear friends, when I realised it was a week since I last wrote a post I wondered where all the time went so I thought I would share my week with you - well the highlights and the low lights at least.

Monday

I had my appointment at the orthopedic department to collect my new orthotics for my shoes.  I have a Mortons neuroma in my foot which is an enlarging of the nerve between the third and fourth toe.  As I have fallen arches it was thought orthotics would help take the pressure off the neuroma and prevent one forming in my other foot.  I am looking forward to being able to spend a day on my feet without pain.  However the new orthotics have a raised area which is agony ( as bad as the neuroma).  The doctor assured me that I will get used to them! But in the meantime this is what they feel like! 

When I asked if it was possible to order another set so I didn't have to keep changing them from shoe to shoe, I was told they cost £200-£300 a pair, so I had better persevere. I am wearing them an hour extra a day - just round the house to begin with!

Tuesday

A hairdressers appointment at 1.00 meant the morning was spent on domestic bits and pieces, but whilst I was in town I went to the local camera shop where a very helpful gentleman printed up a couple of my photographs on the A3 printer.  My friend got me some frames from IKEA so I spent a while deciding how and what I was going to frame up for the forthcoming exhibition at the Luton Hoo Walled Garden. 

Wednesday

A good chunk of the day was spent at Nutty Knitters, my chat and knit group, although not everyone knits.  Several of the ladies belong to the Artists Network Bedfordshire and the group includes spinners, felters, milliners and jewellery makers, so we always have plenty to talk about in Maxine's lovely farmhouse kitchen - and someone has usually baked cake of some sort - something I never do.

Meanwhile at home we were having our downstairs cloakroom - well as there is no room for cloaks, loo - refurbished.  I do hope the old one does not have to stay out behind the bins for too long!

Thursday

Thursday can easily represented by this photograph of my desk! But some creative inspiration was creeping into my day and I started playing around with some daffodil ideas.  In the garden I saw a bumblebee so spring is definitely in the air.

Friday

We usually hit the supermarket on a Friday. I came home with a bunch of daffs and put them by my desk.

 

which really started the ideas flowing for ....

... another stitched book.

Saturday

So here is what I did on Saturday.

 Please click on the pictures for some details.

Sunday

What did I do on Sunday? Well, I took all these photographs and wrote this post.  Not a bad life, even if my feet are killing me!

I hope you have a great week, and see you soon,

Jill





Just 'do' ...

I have tried to be more active this month - not a New Year resolution as such, but when you reach a certain age you realize how important your physical well-being is and I have never been a lover of exercise.  I have some physio exercises for my back and I am getting custom made orthotics for my fallen arches, so I wonder where February will see me!  Marvin, the cat, is doing well after my panic on his diagnosis of diabetes.  He drinks a couple of pints of water a day, but he has a good appetite and doesn't appear to have lost any more weight. 

Thank you to all who ask after him.

My February pages are rather simple at the moment.  Wax resist plus washes of red and yellow for the background and green squares with a bit of white gesso stencilled on.  I was influenced by a bit of 50's fabric for the colour scheme.  I am sure the pages will  liven up by the end of the month. I do hope that those of you who have joined in are enjoying the challenge.  Kate has organized a link on her blog - I have yet to suss that one out.

For all of you who kindly comment on my journal pages, here is another one.  I have been having a paisley moment or two, I find this sort of thing quite mindless and when I am not feeling inspired to be creative I can just start with a glorified doodle.  I may add to it over several days. The internet is a wonderful font of fact, and as I have a mind like a sieve, writing down what I find out is a must.  I just sarted by writing in some paisley shapes and the patterns grew.  You may also notice from the top of the  page that I have joined the Artist Network Bedfordshire. My friend has invited me to join her in the open studio event in June so we have had to do some planning - but more about that much nearer the time.

Here is a page from my little watercolour moleskine.  I did think I would try and draw something from my garden in it every month, but I started it about 18 months ago and it has some big gaps. Perhaps I will do better this year.  Here I drew winter flowering heather, which is a bit tardy this year as it often starts to open before the new year and Christmas box which has the most heavenly sweet scent, if somewhat insignificant flowers.  I have managed to cut this back hard every summer and keep it small enough to stay by my back door. If you long some winter perfume I hightly recommend it.

Well that is January wrapped up, spring is really waiting in the wings. The sun has shone today, the birds singing and it is five o'clock and the sky is still pink! That's progress

Home again

I've had a great break on the Isle of Wight.  My father has a retirement flat in West Cowes and is a sprightly 88. I stay with him as he has a spare room, whereas my sister's bungalow is filled with a couple of teenage nephews! She lives a mile or so along the coast at Gurnard. I spent Wednesday at my sisters and I am sure you can guess we spent most  all of the day talking. We did manage to walk down to the sea front and have short walk on the beach, it was rather chilly. Here's my sister, Janet.

It was wonderful to fill my lungs with sea air and hear the waves breaking on the beach. The island faces the mainland across the Solent so crashing breakers are not so likely on this sheltered shore, but for those of you who miss the sea too, here's a watery shot...

... and a view along the beach in the other direction.

The only good thing to be said was the cloud covered sky did have a bit of variation in tones of grey rather than the uniform milky grey that we have been experiencing lately.

Janet showed me a few copies of her magazine "Selvedge" which is beautiful publication for anyone interested in textiles, art and design,  but what she wanted to share with me was an article about an exhibition at The Foundling Museum called Threads of Feeling.  I will give you a brief outline of the story behind the exhibition, but you should really look at the web sites.   

In 1739 the Foundling Hospital was founded by the philanthropic Thomas Coram to care for abandoned babies.  When mothers brought their babies to the hospital a meticulous register was kept of each child taken in.  However no record of the mothers' names was kept, so to identify the child in the unlikely event of the mother returning to reclaim her child, a token was taken from the mother.  This was  often a piece of fabric cut from the child's or the mother.s clothing. These registers have been meticulously preserved and now form an exhibition at the museum.  The Thomas Coram Foundation is still a leading children's charity.

Flowered all over with cards’. Cotton or linen printed with a playing card pattern © Coram

Not only are these tokens a heart rending record of the tragic separation of mothers and their babies they also form the most extensive collection of examples of 18th century fabrics. Do follow the links, but have a few tissues on hand.  The exhibition is open until March, so may be I will get it together to visit.

Meanwhile back at the Isle of Wight, the weather changed and the cloud broke up Wednesday evening and I was able to get this shot from Janet's front garden  before the light went - then it was really chilly.

Back home to Mr T and Marvin I was pleased to find one of my 'Scribble Boxes' had sold.   

Have a great weekend,

Jill

this week

The weather has been lovely the last couple of days and to show I have a life beyond sewing I thought I would draw a sellection of flora from  the garden. In fact I could have filled several pages as there is so much blooming at the moment including primulas and bergenia - are they late or early I wonder. I was going to post some photographs or my sewing, but now Blogger won't even load the  insert image window.  I am writing this on my lap-top where as the picture above was scanned into my PC a couple of hours ago. So I am not sure if it is the lap-top or Blogger playing up! Yes I am a two computer household - my laptop was a retirement present, and I must say that  I love sitting with it in the evening whilst Mr T watches something  on TV I'm not very interested in - most programmes can be taken in with only a brief amount of attention, I'm sure you'll agree. Although he does sometimes 'test' me to see if I paying attention (LOL).

I have switched to 'Internet Explorer' from Google 'Chrome'  and this seems  to have helped, a bit ironic as I think Google is connected to Blogger.

I've been using the ironing board as an extra work table which is great as I can adjust its height easily. I used the pliers for closing some 'keeper' rings for attaching some charms to the cords on the purse as I haven't and suitable coloured beads.

My button tins are getting a lot of use - here are another couple of purses. They haven't sold as well as the book covers but I really like making them - here are a couple of details.

I find I have favourite patches - stem stitch is my embroidery stitch of choice at the moment, plus French knots. I love the red candy stripes - here with added seed beads.

I love the colours in this one. My favourite machine stitch is the blanket stitch here done in a lovely varigated thread.

I have made a matching purse and book cover in red, black and white. Hopefully they will appear in my shop over the weekend along with some more book covers.  I must say I really enjoy putting the different fabrics together but making sure I photograph them effectively is a bit more of a chore.

Now I must try to catch up with everone else's post. Busy weekend ahead, so posting on the shop will be a priority, hope you have a great weekend - the weather forecast for the UK is pretty good. Hope you are ready for 10/10/10.

Jill



October begins

September completed

The month has been as busy as my pages suggest and is significant in that it has seen the launch of my

Etsy shop which turns me from being retired teacher/pensioner into self-employed crafting business woman (well sort of). My work room has become a bit of a production line lately with several sewing project at various stages, but and it is a big but ... my first love is dabbling so I must build time into my days for this. Of course I am prepared to put in the hours needed at the moment to get the shop up and going, but I hope I can get the balance right. It is very flattering when your work sells and I do like doing a bit of stitchin'

October begins...

I made these pages by first dyeing them with brusho powder watercolours. Rather than cut out the squares, this time I drew them and bleached out the colour. I then drew illustrations. You may notice that the 31st artfully falls from the row like an autumn leaf - or like an erratum slip (when you realise I missed out a  square). This page fulfilled an urge to doodle - now it is back to the sewing machine! I shall find time later to catch up everyone's calendar pages on the flickr site - there are many who have managed to keep going through the month  and well worth a look - it's downhill now to the end of 2010!!

September

Here is August, all 31 days of it, and how disappointingly wet it has been. I always find looking at my completed month interesting - for example it seems ages ago I had lunch with my friends, and yet it was only last week, but on the other hand only a blink ago I was planning the colour scheme for the page and here is the month complete.

What will be in store for September I wonder. It can be one of the most beautiful months. Don't you just love chilly bright mornings, when the air is crystal clear and every shrub and twig is decorated with a sparkling spider web? 

For my September calendar I have gone a bit 'mad'. I have been sitting at the computer for hours -  more work on setting up my shop. It will be such a relief when it is done. I have been taking photographs of the things I shall be selling.  I even went and cut the grass as an excuse to flex my muscles after sitting about for so long.  I needed to flex my creative muscles as well especially as I have been hand sewing and drawing those little illustrations for my memoirs. When I realized it was the end of the month it gave me an excuse to clear my desk and get out the paints.  I went a bit fauve and built up my autumn scene in orange and mauve - the colours haven't scanned very well. No stamping, no pens, but I did a pit of junk printing and stencil work. What fun, and I definitely felt a bit loosened up (although I could probably do with a few more days of sloshing the paint about). However I didn't want to lose my paint effects when I stuck down the squares for the calendar, so  ...

I scanned one of the pages, desaturated the colour and blurred it a bit with Picasa and printed out a couple of sheets which I cut into 4cm squares. I stuck these down in a slap-dash way and added the numbers and weekdays with a dip-pen. Everything is a bit blotty and smudged, I even started misnumbering the days and had to do a quick cut and paste job. But overall I have ended up with a rather effective page.

It is great to look back at last September's page when I was just staring out on my Art Journal quest. Everything was rather tight and restrained. I was very cautious about expressing myself artistically. I cannot emphasise enough how far I have come, mentally as much as artistically in the last twelve months - and now I am about to set up my own shop. I would say to any of you who feel unsure of your talents, just let go and enjoy yourself - it doesn't matter, it has taken me 60 years to gain the confidence to share something like this sploshy page, and know some of you will like it, but if you don't, it doesn't matter

Monday

I have given myself a good talking to ... and just enjoyed the rain today, and my futile attempts to make some heatproof oven gloves ... and the overflowing laundry basket ... and the letter about the car insurance ... yes I am fine, can't keep in a grumpy mood for long.  And yesterday, (I think Lesley guessed) I wanted to use one of my favourite words - ennui - sometimes that feeling of bored restlessness is good for the creative spirit.

One of the best things to get my creative juices flowing is to collage a page in my journal. I really wanted to do layers, layers, layers, and I did, but I'm sorry to say it looks a bit sad here. 

A photograph would probably do it better justice but the light had gone by the time I had finished and as it is shiny with layers of acrylic wax, flash was not a good idea. Still here is my piece which is all about making sure that we are still creating memories for the future. I know that in my real 'old age' I shall be able to look back at this time in my life as one of my most creative. I don't think this sort of art is my strength, but it is good fun and very therapeutic. I wanted to post this today as everyone is being very kind  about cheering me up and I am fine, thank you all so much.

To finish on a sunny note I will share these photographs I took last year at Collage Lake Nature Reserve near Tring in Hertfordshire, one of those little gems of a spot you could easily miss.

I've only got to look at this Rosebay willowherb and golden rod (or is it ragwort?) to cheer me up.

Nature's herbaceous border

This one has had a tweak on the colour saturation.

This one I took at the same spot the year before

A Four-spotted chaser dragon fly