Thank you

Thank you all for your kind wishes - Mr T's op went well so he should be home before too long. I am SO tired but cannot relax enough to take a nap and certainly am not up to doing all that crafting I was going to do with the house to myself. I will catch up with you all later. I am going to try to find a soppy film I can watch and fall asleep in the chair and miss the ending!
I hope you are enjoying your weekend,
Jill

All round the garden....

Rose Gertrude Jekyll

I feel as if I have been round and round the garden this week. Mr T is going into hospital at 7am tomorrow for what should be a routine op. But he has a horrible habit of being different and we have got all our fingers crossed. He should be out in (3, 5, 7, 10) days depending on who you speak to. I shall be happy with 7. So I shall either be on-line a lot in the next few days with time on my hands or just too busy filling the house with my projects before I have to retreat back to my work room.  I have been very busy and I shall be sharing what I have been up to later, but meanwhile here is a tour of my sister's garden on the Isle of Wight.

 

Janet is a tireless worker and as you can see she has a beautiful garden absolutely bursting with gorgeous flowers and shrubs, as well as a flourishing vegetable garden. This was when I visited last month. Now she says the dry weather is taking its toll so I am glad I managed to capture it at its best. I am sure you will agree that it is worthy of any gardening magazine and I must let her know her garden is here on-line as she hasn't seen these pictures yet, due to her sisters tardiness in getting a disc together for her.

Up the garden path - I believe Janet laid all these slabs herself.

Water lilies

Janet had a pond dug when she had builders in adding an extension - I think they got carried away with the mini-digger.

The pond is raised as her garden goes up-hill. Here she is doing a bit of dead-heading.

This lovely archway divides the garden.

It is a average size suburban bungalow garden, but by creating lots of different areas the garden feel larger than it is.

Climbing Rose Handel

A shady spot by the pond.

A bumble bee enjoying the kniphofia.

The veggie patch

Climbing Rose Ice-berg

Looking back towards her bungalow.

I am sure she won't mind me mentioning that she is a widow bringing up two teenage boys on her own, as well as working three days a week and constantly crafting in her 'spare' time. Her energy and resourcefulness leave me speechless, so this is dedicated to my little sis.

The Evolution of the Paper Moth

Last Saturday I photographed these Eyed Hawk Moths and dyed some paper for another project...

... and I just knew something was going to happen.

First I made this large cut-out moth in my A4 Journal.

But something was not right, it was too large and neither one thing or another. So I cut out lots of small moths.

As I had decided they were 'paper moths' they needed to be on a paper background. I felt these small versions looked much better.

Another ideas that has been going around my head is to make some Lotus Flower books which I had first seen on Heloise blog. It was for these that I had coloured the paper, but I hadn't decided on a cover theme. The paper moth seemed ideal. I used the moths on the front covers.

The background is a scanned paper bag from The Chattanooga Choo Choo museum in Chattanooga and an old style publicity newspaper from Niagara Falls, both souvenirs from my Greyhound trip round the USA in 1977. (Rummaging around all the bits of paper I brought home cost me several hours of reminiscing). I added a bit of distressing ink, pen and pencil work and a bit of glitter. The results are here and I am pleased with the way they have turned out.  The pages are folded 10cm squares and the covers just over 5cm to allow for an overlap.

Linda at Blue-eyed Girl was my inspiration here and she gives a super tutorial on how to make these pretty little books.

 

I tried to be aware of my creative process here; the initial idea of wanting to use the image of the moth, then the frustration as it didn't quite work out as I first thought. Then the connection of different inspirations and influences to complete the final design. Now I feel no desire to repeat the pattern, but may well try some variation.

I am still staggering from the amount of 'stuff' I have manged to  create in the last year or so since retiring. I want to feel that I am not just madly running from one novelty to the next, but following my own 'art foundation' course and hopefully somewhere along the  way I can feel I am truly on an artistic journey.

Thank you for sharing it with me.

A new month

Where did June go?

 It is hard to ignore the passage of time when you are filling these in, but I started last July and I must say I enjoy looking back at what I wrote.

Here is July 2010.

 

I hope you like my new Blog layout. This way I can post larger photographs, it was quite easy with the new design tab.

SWIFTS

Here is something I have been thinking about for some time. I did a page in my journal last year devoted to swifts, but I wasn't quite happy with it so I thought I would have another go. Some of the dyed paper I made earlier in the week was just the background I was looking for. It is not a great piece of art, more a poster, but it expresses how I feel about swifts, they speak for themselves.

I learned some new facts about Swifts from this BTO page.

• 
  
  In spells of bad weather Swifts can foray for food hundreds of miles away from their nesting sites so those on the south coast could be feeding in northern central France.
• 
  
  Their eggs can survive long periods of chilling while the parent birds are away.
• 
  
  Young birds can also survive chilling to the point of torpor, reviving quickly when the parents return with food.
• 
  
  The young can survive up to three weeks without food whereas adults swifts become weak after starving for two or three days and usually die after four days without food.
• 
  
  Swifts are related to humming birds.

Swift lino print

I already knew;

• 
  
  Swifts sleep and mate on the wing.
• 
  
  When they leave the nest they have one chance to fly as they cannot take off from the ground and will then be airborne for three or four years until they raise their own family.

I find the life of these birds which grace us with their presence every year truly wonderful, and if I were to have to choose an animal existence it would have to be a Swift for me

For moth lovers...

You know who you are...

Yesterday afternoon as we were getting ready to go out I took a walk round the garden and  to see what bumblebees I could see when I spotted what a I thought was a dead leaf caught up in the valerian and knautia. A quick scramble for the camera and the moth book quickly identified a pair of eyed hawk moths. They were huge and perfectly still. They will flash their pink 'eye' on the lower wing if disturbed but this pair were unmoved. I didn't want to hustle them too much. Here are a couple more pictures.

They're dedicated to Lesley of PRINTED MATERIAL, a lover of moths and all things beautiful.

The wings are amazing and although I have seen these moths before, I haven't had such a  good view. I love the way they look like a dried and twisted leaf or flaking bark, it is hard to believe your eyes and that their wings are smooth and flat. I definitely feel a bit of art coming on. 

As you can tell my mood has lifted, thanks for your kind words. I spent the afternoon mixing up lots of Brusho powder colours and then layering paper in different colours. I then laid it out on the lawn to dry. It was even too hot to sit in the shade out-side. (Well, for me it was)

 Could there be some moth wings in there?

I shall be busy for a couple of days so time to mull over a few ideas and the end of the month is drawing closer, so another journal page is also calling. I will leave you with this photograph, which my dearly beloved was not amused by, but I was...

(watching England beat the Aussies at cricket)

What do you think?

Last Saturday I posted this picture which was a manipulated picture I took of the sea.  I felt it would be a good stimulous for a piece of embroidery, so I had a go and came up with this.

It is worked on a piece of A5 sized pelmet vilene which I coloured first with some transfer dye. I then loosely appliqued on some fabric and yarns and then went mad with the free  sewing-machine embroidery which was great fun. I then added some hand stitching with metalic thread and beads to add some sparkle. I was pretty pleased with the effect.

click image for a close-up

What next?

Despite having some success recently I am feeling in a strange mood.  I feel I am not quite enjoying my creativity at the moment. I have quite a few projects on the go and I am managing to do something most days, but I feel like a headless chicken. I have lost my sense of humour and have been very grumpy with Mr T. He is due in hospital next month for surgery. Nothing very serious, but we are both feeling a bit anxious as he has a very fat file at the hospital!   Perhaps I should allow myself a few days of not doing any arty stuff.

I know you lovely people will say 'there, Jill it is all right' and that is what I need right now. I value my 'bloggy' friends highly, so bear with me through the grumps,

Jill

Gifts

This morning a lovely 'Jiffy Bag' arrived with my name on it - don't you love it when a package arrives in the post? Yesterday the braiding foot I ordered for my sewing machine arrived and today a larger, more exciting envelope. I knew what it was as Amelia from 101 Bird Tales had e mailed me to tell me my name had been drawn in her give-away. Amelia is one of those inspiring women who lives a full life as a practising artist, caring for her children, and teaching and enabling others to explore their artistic talents. Although my name was drawn randomly, you cannot help but feel a bit special when it is your name that come up, so this is what is in the pack.

It was another glorious morning, so I took it outside to photograph.

Tucked it there is a card from Roger la Borde. I thought I recognized the style from Amelia's post and was delighted to find that it was a  Rob Ryan  whose blog I follow. I love his paper cut-outs. I missed photographing that separately.

There was some lovely paper scraps and a card or two of Amelia's and an old wooden letterpress - G for Guerilla. I love this as my father was a printer and when I saw him last week we were talking about his time as a printer's apprentice, before WW2, and how much of the terminology has crept into modern use. ( I don't think they were still using wooden letterpresses then, Dad!!) 

Then there was  one of Amelia's calico bags embroidered with the work 'artist', and a hand-made Guerilla Stitch Kit,

 

Now I have the challenge of stitching a few words onto the pieces of calico and to liberate them around the town. Although I shall be sorry to take the bits from this book, that is what Amelia designed it for, so I shall try my best to fulfil its destiny.