Doodle Day- Kitchen Chaos..

It's funny how a seemingly unrelated thing can trigger a memory. I had waited a long time to become pregnant with my first child. The resulting euphoria put me into a sort of dreamlike state for quite some time and during that time I served some pretty strange meals but the thing I remember most is staring in bewilderment at the tea leaves floating in the milk jug, the milk turning the sugar into a sticky mess, coffee in the tea pot. I must have had every combination possible. So here is
the doodle
Thanks for the memory Helen Suzanne.

How beautiful is this.......

I love it when I unexpectedly come across something I think is beatiful, this is by artist Heather Jansch.

Her web site has many more photgraphs and details of where her work can be seen.

I came across this artist thanks to Teesha Moore his name is Alberto Cerriteno and you can see more of his wonderful creations like this
on his blog

There is great excitement.......

in the art world, a new fresco has been unearthed by builders restoring a 15th centrury chapel, this will probabley become known as one of the great wroks of art of all times..............but only in my dreams!!! This is the story I told myself while working on it.
In other words here is my killed catalogue made following Maggie Grey's madcap idea (and excellent instruction).

Here it is from raw catalogue to finish (with a lot missed out)




Looking forward now to Maggies new book "Stitches Straps and Layers" and especially to our own Calendar Girls Lynda and Carols book Stitching the Textured Surface

Tulip time...

Yesterday the gloom lifted and in beautiful spring sunshine I took the train to London where I had arranged to meet Lynda so that we could investigate the art store called http://www.atlantisart.co.uk/. In my excitement I arrived at Charing Cross about an hour before I needed to, so I stepped into the Embankment Gardens, and this is what I found.
Dech chairs waiting for the band...
A man on a camel..
A rather distraught young woman...

and tulips, tulips everywhere
..



Our visit to Atlanis was a success but our visit to the Backyard Market was a little disappointing, perhaps we hit a bad day. On the way home I walked through Trafalgar Square which was even busier than normal, there was a Visit Holland event in progress and guess what... more tulips.

This is one in my garden that had opened out wide to take in the sun (a bit like me)

I can tell you, for me, one of the great joys in life is stolling through London in the sunshine and passing the time with a friend. Good day.
Please feel free to use these photographs.

As a follow up to the last post Stephen Durrant's Owl was runner up in the competition and was shown on the programme. Congratulations Stephen.

Owls.....

Seem to be everywhere this week. First there was the Owl for Doodle day. This is my "Owls Nest"(put the apostrophe where you want!)

and with a little Paintshop Pro
"Night Owls"!!

The One Show on BBCTV had an animal photo competition this week and owls popped up in all the categories including this stunner by Stephen Durrant of Norfolk. No breach of copywrite intended. Good luck Stephen.

If you want to see a really aaah! owl photograph go here I found it when following a link to the USA EPA Earth Day 2009 site which has some stunning photographs.
Finally this mornning my friend Tony had a suprise from Australia, see here for a different kind of owl.
Now to go an see what everyone else has been up to, I don't dare look before I do mine.

Trees......

This months Calendar Girls picture was beautiful silver birch trees chosen by Susan.

I love trees, want to be buried under one, but silver birch are a particular favourite. They have such a delicacy to them and there bark is wonderful. My first though was to make my card look like a piece of bark. Foolish mortal, what made me think I could better something Mother Nature had perfected? So into the bin went the pieces,though I must say I might give it another try sometime but for now this is what I have sent off to Doreen.

I coloured the background of Dupion with Inktense (watercolour) pencils (something I have learned from my friend Marien), I shedded more Dupion for the tree trunks and then worked a bit further with the pencils. I added a frame just for a change.
The calendar actually reminded me of a photograph I took on Dartford Heath some years ago

I remember I waited ages for the man to walk far enough away.

Doodle day - tree house

Using watercolour pencils reminds me of the "magic" colouring books you could buy years ago. You just put water on the page and the colours appeared, rather feint colours which quickly turned to a disapponting overall sepia with over enthusiastic brush work. I think my doodle this week owes a lot to subconcious memories of E H Shepard's illustrations in the A A Milne Winnie the Pooh books.

Happy Easter everyone.

A Grey day

I have just spent an enthralling afternoon listening to the warm and wonderful Maggie Grey talking about transferring animage to stitch.

I am really looking forward to starting to work on my catalogues. Maggie brought the Icon one that is on her blog and it is wonderful. one of the most exciting parts was the way the moulded paper merged into the catalogue and or course the figure itelf.I can tell you I came home with my fingers itching, Maggie makes it all sound so easy, "you just......"
This

and this

and this

started life as this

That's what happens to you photographs when you spend the afternoon with Maggie Grey.
A Good Day, thanks Maggie and, of course, Clive.

Paisley...

for Doodle Day. This was my offering for this week.

I used gel pens in purple, orange and bright pink, colours I associate with India. I was going to continue until it was in one big paisley but that would have involved thinking and therefore it would have been a design not a doodle!! Because it wasn't as vibrant as I wanted I popped into Paint Shop Pro and had a play.