Dreams

I have to believe I am living my dream.

I can spend as much of my time as I like here...

 ... my work station with my four journals - the A4 'Pink Pig' spiral bound, large and small moleskines and my little handmade book. (More of that another time)

The sun shone this morning and Marvin called me into the garden to play, but like most cats was quickly distracted by the birds on the feeder for which I am grateful, for I really do feel the fool turning in circles on the lawn with a garden cane for the cat to chase!!

and here is Marvin wishing he could fly

and the winners are ...

After a ceremonious draw by Mr T I declare the winners to be:

Duncan

Eileen

Chris

Printed Material

Lalabibaby

Barb

So as soon as I get your address I will be sending off your envelope. I am really excited as I will be posting to Thailand, Australia, Scotland, Wales and to my own county of Bedfordshire. Your three cards will be randomly selected as I am putting them in envelopes so I won't know who is getting what, except it will be one of each design.

You should be able to e mail me through my blog profile.

I am sure I shall do this again sometime as it such fun contacting people from all round the world - have a great week.

Hi there

I'll be making my draw tomorrow and will be contacting the winners soon (I have a bit of a busy week coming up) - whether they think they are lucky will remain to be seen!
Meanwhile here is a water colour exercise done by my sister Janet she has posted on flickr. She is really pleased but is not very confident in her ability, so if you have moment and are registered with flickr please drop her a line by clicking here, she would be so chuffed to get some comments.

Janet's ivy leaves

Morning

(Please click on the photographs for a larger view)

Although I love painting and drawing sometimes it is photography that just touches the spot.

Earlier this week the sun was shining after a rainy night and everything was glistening  from the light of the low sun. This is an ornamental crab apple tree in my garden and each apple had a drop of water hanging on it. The shadow of the fence was deep but the sun caught the fruit giving it a wonderful glow and the blue sky was captured in the drop. I am so pleased I took the two Open Collage of the Arts photography courses, they have given me tools to capture what I see. I was delighted with this shot - especially with the way the stem is also glowing red. It has only had the minimal adjustment to the contrast.

Initially it was these back-lit leaves that attracted my attention making them glow against the dark holly tree. A large aperture ensured a shallow depth of field throwing the holly out of focus, the sparkling water on the leaves giving the 'bokeh' effect much loved by many photographers (In case you are wondering 'bokeh' comes from a Japanese term used to describe the out of focus area of a photograph especially when lights form little discs of light)

Indulge me ...

I wrote this in August and just found it in my journal, so I thought I'd try layering it on a painting I had done of 'snow in summer'
I am not normally taken with writing, but on reading this I remembered the afternoon well. It  started as just a list, and I am not claiming any literary merit, but what a blessing keeping a journal is, otherwise this magic moment would have been lost.

There is still time to enter my draw, I am delighted so many of you have responded, but sorry that it will mean some will be disappointed.

Give Away

"Marvin"

"Headdresses" (there are six of these)

"Meadow"

Here goes, I've never done this before, but I have 18 little 6x9cm cards to give away in three different designs (They may vary from the ones shown) so I thought that I would give them to six of my 'followers' who care to comment - three each, one of each design but lucky-dip as to which ones. After a week I'll randomly choose the six  and ask you to e mail me your address. I hope this is fair. If less than six enter I'll share them out accordingly.

I enjoyed making these and thought it would be nice to share, hope you think so too.

The little collage meadow cards were inspired by Angie Lewin, the headdresses by the Omo people and 'Marvin' by my cat who I love to draw.

For Friday

It is Friday, it is dull, it is raining and I have a headache. Wanted to get something lively and interesting for the weekend but instead thought I'd share this page from June. I have been doing a lot of journal writing since then and my lettering skills have improved a lot but I was pleased with the drawing of the perennial sweet pea. These are growing in my garden, but they always remind me of my grandmother. When we stayed with my grandparents in Norfolk for out summer holidays these sweet peas would be blooming and my sister and I would always be allowed to pick as many as we liked. My grandmother would put them in old glass tumblers she had decorated with transfer prints and put them round the living room of her two-up two-down cottage. What wonderful holidays we had there - the cottage was tiny but full of 'treasures' or old 'lumber' as my grandfather would call it. Nearly all of it gone, just memories now.