Etching Again

I spent another day at an etching workshop yesterday. Here is my print.

The trouble is I was only able to pull one decent print and I have done some extra work on the plate and was unable to take a print. The workshop was very busy and great fun, but I rushed a couple of processes and had to start again - don't say it... ' more haste ...I know, I know'

This is a scan of the first print off the plate so the definition is not that good. The better one is on too large a piece of paper to get in the scanner. However I am pleased with the intial outcome.  I wanted the contrast between the thistledown and the prickles, I think it has come across,  but I value your opinion. I shall definitely be going back in the spring to do some more.

Here is my sketch and photograph again which were my initial inspirations,

Thanks again to Karen and the Milton Keynes Printmakers

Inspired

There's calm in your eye

This picture started so differently, I wish I'd scanned it before I started reworking it this morning.  Last week I was listening to Neil Young's 'Like a Hurricane', one of my all time favourites, and I had an urge to make a picture to show how it made me feel. 

I started with a magazine photograph of Alexandra Burke and I was struck by her eyes,  so a drew a more or less straight copy, and placed in on a painted and collaged background, but it wasn't doing it for me. So I let it sit.

THEN... Lesley from PRINTED MATERIAL  posted me a comment AND on her inspirational site I found this: 

  Here are a couple of Hans Silvester's amazing photographs.

I find these images so beguiling, at the moment I am having to have a daily fix.

So my piece of work was reborn, also taking inspiration from my photographs of thistles for the spiky headdress.

So this morning 'Alexandra' got a coat of white gesso and a whole new hairstyle!

I hope you enjoy sharing my though processes!!

I have come quite a way from my original visualisation - thanks Neil (and Lesley)

Roll over

My cat, Marvin is a rather large ginger and white cat who arrived at our home in 2005 from the local cat rescue charity.  I have always enjoyed  sketching my cats over the years so I thought I'd keep a Marvin sketchbook. He always prefers lying stretched out - I think his belly is too fat for curling up - he is on a strict diet, but it's not making any difference. You may have noticed him cropping up before. I thought I'd share these with you, I'm sure he'll crop up again.

A New Month Dawns

Along with Art Journalling I have discovered calender making - so I thought I'd share some of my efforts so far. So here are August and September...

If you click on the image you can see some of the detail - but I apologize for the less than brilliant photographs. These are in  A4 size Pink Pig sketch books.

Here is October with just Friday and Saturday to fill in. These are great fun - especially if you like doodling. Sometimes I feel like writing, or sometimes just a minimal bit of rubber stamping will do - 'cos on some days nothing much does happen.

So today I prepared November.

I layered the background with gesso, acrylic paint and watercolour pencil - and printed with leaves and my favourite sequin waste. Then I cut thirty squares from various coloured papers, made days of the weeks labels and the month title ...

... and I am all ready for November.

Luton Hoo Walled Garden

Gateway to the garden

Let me introduce you to the walled garden at Luton Hoo. I have an artists access card which will enable me to visit the garden a couple of days a week for the next year to take photographs or sketch or whatever. Today I had my first chance to explore and I am so excited at the opportunity I have. Let me fill you in with a quick bit of history first. The Luton Hoo estate has a long history but is most well known for its beautiful house and gardens designed by Capability Brown. In the late 1760s/70s an octagonal walled garden was built. This was to be a botanical garden to grow exotic flowers, fruit and vegetables. In the 1880s Sir Julius & Lady Alice Werner had a glass house built by Mackenzie & Moncur. After WWII the cost on running large estates became prohibitive and the garden and glass houses gradually fell into disrepare. The house was sold off and is now a luxury hotel and spa, but the estate is run by a different management. A great project is in hand to restore the garden and there are many volunteers working on researching the history of the gardens, fund raising, restoration and gardening. The garden is vast and surrounded by a 19ft wall which creates a micro-climate. There are many glass houses, an brick outbuildings which have been used in lots of TV series and films - if you are interested you can read about it on their website here  and there is info about the estate on wikepedia.

Inside the garden

The garden is divided by a great 'diaphragm' wall which increased the area availble for trained fruit trees. I hope this gives you an idea of how vast it is.

Through the gap

This is taken from the great glass conservatory looking through the gap in the 'diaphragm' wall to the far gate.

The Mackenzie & Moncur conservatory

This has been wrapped in plastic to try to stop it deteriating any further.

I will definitely be sharing more photographs of this wonderful place with you. I am actually more interested in making more abstract, graphic images, but I thought I'd start with a taster of the whole garden.
(No guarantee on the accuracy of my historic information) 

Hooked

Here is a page from my larger Moleskine sketchbook with 48 'inchies' I doodled when my eyes were having a good day. Never one to overlook a good idea I discovered the concept of "art journals" earlier this year. This seemed a wonderful solution to my problem of having lots of art projects floating around on untidy bits of paper and the feeling that when I did feel in a creative mood I had to produce something for a wall. An art journal is the perfect solution. My art had a valid home and the whole philosophy of art journaling is to free yourself from restrictions so:

No. 1 Rule of Art Journaling: anything goes.

I started my journal in rather nice 'Pink Pig' A4 spiral bound sketch book I had bought sometime ago, because I loved the cover, but hadn't know what to do with so my first journal was started. But then on flickr everyone was talking about moleskines, which I had never heard of. Well after a quick 'google' to the Moleskine site I had to have one or two or three. I am not one usually to jump onto a bandwagon, but I have to admit I am hooked.

 "Inchies" are another thing I discovered on flickr and as a veteran doodler the idea of producing a one inch square of art really appealed so I had to have a go. I posted my first attempts onto my flickr page and then kept a few ready cut blank inchies for those moments when I wanted a little doodle.

And then there is my pocket size notebook moleskin which is just for me - and an occasional share.

Here is yesterday's page.

I try and write/draw/paint/doodle in it most days.

Oh then there is my Art journal calendar... another time I think...

Landscape Inchies

and

Marvin Inchies

'Mums

Today is grey and damp - a horrid mizzle in the air - scuppering my plans to go out with my camera - but never mind, I am definitely in a better mood than yesterday morning, although by the end of the day I was cheered. Today I have played with paints and ideas for actually painting on a canvas. It is so cheap to buy stretched canvases these days, I have got them from B&Q and and from Dunelm. They are probably knocked up in a Chinese sweatshop (but I won't think about that today) I have gessoed my canvas and added a layer of paint and now must wait for it to thoroughly dry. I have aims to develop my thistle head idea from here
Here I have posted a drawing of a bunch of chrysanthemums I did several years ago, which I always liked when I came across it in a trawl through my sketchbooks. So I thought I'd give it a second life and cut round the drawing and stuck it on a prepared background in my art journal embellished with a bit of stencilling from sequin waste - a mainstay for art journal creators.
Chrysanthemums in October always make me think of my poor old mum, who spent her last few years in a nursing home, where she was cared for with much consideration. Her birthday was in October and she always seemed to have chrysanths on her windowsill through out the winter months. So these are for her.