Winter Solstice Greetings

Soon the days will be getting longer!

More of him later...

I have been busy over the weekend - the Christmas cards are posted, the decorations down from the loft, presents bought - if not wrapped and the house reasonably tidy. As we are having a very quiet Christmas there is not a lot more to do - just the last bit of food shopping.  So I have had time to play with my new toys.

lino prints

After my couple of days etching in the autumn, I got the urge to do some printing and lino is an easy one to do at home. As well as a piece of traditional lino I also got a piece of synthetic lino which I used for this ATC sized print. I tinted the paper by rubbing stamping pads on thin card and printed with some water soluble printing ink. Of course I had to have another go at needle felting too - quite a contrast to the messy printing. But both are involving sharp tools! I hope you like my little 'blue-tit' loosely based on the real bird using the rather bright colours I had. Thank you to everyone who has sent me links to needle-felting sites, they have given me lots of tips.

 

Stand by your journals

A reminder soon of the challenge to create an art calendar page for January.

Winter photography

My re-entry into the world of art and crafting started three years ago when I bought my first serious camera - a Nikon D40 DSLR. As I had no idea how to get the most out of it I registered with the Open College of Art for their photography course. After a year I upgraded my camera to the D80 and have completed another course, the work for which is at the early months of this blog.   Now my camera has to fight for time with all my other projects, but I do enjoy creating abstract  images so I thought I'd share these with you.

fence

gate

tree

A Week too early!

Viburnum Tinus

Erica Carnea

Vauxhall Astra

As you can see, we live in the eastern counties that got a good few inches of snow overnight, with the look of more to come this evening.  Of course I had to get out with the camera and there will be more on my flickr pages over the next few days.  I was pleased that I took notice of the weather forecast yesterday and we went to the supermarket to do our weekend shop a day early - the cupboard was bare, so now we are well stocked up.  The advantage of living in a town like Luton is that we also have three corner shops  a couple of minutes walk away - including a post-office - so there is no need to go short of basics. 
We don't seems to have had a postal delivery today, but I did see Gary the postie in his shorts yesterday, I hope he hasn't caught pneumonia!

Keep warm

Blame it on the blog

It all started with a lovely surprise.
A little Marvin arrived in the post from Lesley of Printed Material

'How did  you do it?' I enquired.
'It's needle felt' replied Lesley, 'You need wool and a needle.  You stab the wool with the needle.'
'That sounds interesting' I thought.
Google
shop
wool, needles, foam (to stop you stabbing yourself supposedly)
roll wool
stab
stab
OW!
 more Google and Youtube
stab, stab, stab
twiddle, fiddle, stitch


Tra laa

...only drew blood once!

This could be the start of something big!

I've got a way to go before I can create such lovelies as the cute cat, but a furry fish is a start!

A quiet moment

Here is my contribution to a quiet Advent moment.

I don't know about you, but all creative activities have had to take second  place to Christmas preparations. Trying to fit in a few minutes quiet contemplation seems to be difficult, but I usually manage to stop and watch the birds on the feeders while drinking my morning cup of tea. I enjoy the fact that as well as the cyclamen flowering,  I have an azalea about to bloom and my orchids will be out for Christmas.

This was a couple of years ago, it is considerably larger now.

I hope you manage your own few moments of peace.

A more cheerful note ...

Here are a couple of pictures I took of our resident robin last winter.  He went on to find a mate and raise a family.  I would like to think it was the same robin who is in my garden this year, but it is probably very unlikely.  A couple of winters ago I joined the BTO garden bird watch scheme which entails keeping a weekly record of the birds that visit the garden and then submitting the counts on-line.  I have always enjoyed bird watching in a rather casual way, and I am pretty good at spotting the common varieties so taking part in this programme was not much bother. I keep a list of the usual visitors in my kitchen and tick them off when I see them adding any unusual visitors as I go. I feel it is important to make sure our little feathered friends are protected as they give so much joy.  It is probably hypocritical of me to keep a cat as I know domestic cats can wreak havoc especially at nesting time, but luckily Marvin is not much of a birder and vary rarely makes a catch even when there are fledglings about. Counting the birds has made me realise what a variety do visit and I have at least 15 different species a week. Special visitors have included flocks of redwing, a gold crest, greater spotted woodpecker and sparrow hawks. Gold finches have been daily visitors all year and I often count eight at a time, and a group of house sparrows are now regular callers since I feed daily through out the year. But my favourite are long tailed tits which arrive in flurry and are off again after a few minutes frantic feeding. More information about British Trust for Ornithology  here.

(Feeling much better thank you all)

Knotted breath

Last year, a few months after I stopped teaching I had a few health issues, one being trouble with my breathing.  I had always been a bit wheezy but this was a rather frightening episode linked to damaging some nerves in my upper back. It was even suggested I was having panic attacks. I am now on a daily regime of inhalers  but like many asthmatics vulnerable to chest infections.  I had drawn the figure above when I was feeling really bad, I wanted to convey the feel of restricted breath.  Earlier this year I scanned and enlarged it using it in one of my journals which have been instrumental in helping me evolve my new life-style. I found it very difficult to let go and allow myself the indulgence of exploring myself, so a pictured like this represents a lot more than a physical restriction. Sharing it with the world on my blog is another step.

I have a cough right now which always makes my back vulnerable and consequently I have pulled a muscle which I have done before.  I am well equipped with ice-packs, heat pads and a support belt and hope to be back to normal soon. I'm not looking for sympathy, but hope my picture conveys the desperate feeling of having to work at taking a breath both physcally and metaphorically.