Modern Art and Medieval Mastery......

 Yesterday I took myself up to London without any real plan but the sun was shining so the city was mine.  It turned into a day or contrasts. My first visit was to Southwark Cathedral to see the installation by Angela Wright. 

This is a close up of the wool strands

The softness of the flow against the wonderful medieval carvings of the High Altar was stunning and very moving. It is in place for the whole of Lent. There is a talk by the artist this Sunday(March 16) at 12.45.
Back out into the sunshine I wandered along the edge of the Thames to the Tate Modern. 
Didn't quite expect the fun I had.  We like the familiar, I think, so the Mondrian

and the Rothko

 and I loved these huge canvases by Gerhard Richter

but I had the most fun with these.
Dan Flavin, this room had flourescent lights on one wall which threw shadows onto the opposite wall. As people walked throught the room you could see their shadows in various colours but I couldn't really see my own. Fascinating.
This young man kindly stood still for me.

and this is my shadow

  

Gorgeous colour.

Gerhard Richter again,  11 panes of glass which gave a blurred impession and almost a sense that you could see though yourself.

Just looks like a rather blurred photograph really but you had to be there.  Back outside, sun still shining I took the "wobbly bridge" across the river

 and back in time but if we are to eat this week I better go and do some shopping. To be contd.

Wk 10.....

It is getting hard to keep up..a little sunshine and the great outdoors beckons.  But back on track now I hope with Documented Life. The brief was "Make a list of the the things that make you, YOU"......not a clue ....so I took a photograph of the hearts that had been on my tree in January and February  because they represented all the things I like to play with and then I made a list of things I like a lot.(in no particular order I hasten to add)

the major catch up was on my runner,

The Lakeland hills look a bit more like volcanoes, the colours at the top are for the polyanthus we pooped in the garden to give it a lift.
This just made me smile.

Craft Barn..Marriage

Catching up with the Craft Barn Q&L challenge.  The words were Marriage and Age, immediately   I started singing "Love and Marriage......etc", so here is my take. c

Although it is a dying institution it has been around for a long time so I chose this stamp of a couple from Pompeii and added one of my favourite photographs from my own wedding.  Gelli print background, stamp onto handmade paper and other stamps on deli paper.
and this is Frank Sinatra's version.


  My apologies if  this gets on your brain for the next fortnight.

Wk 9..

a sad/happy week.  We were comforted by the number of people who attended my brother's funeral, good to see so many people loved him as we did. The happy part was being with family,  we had an afternoon at the zoo with my great nephews, so good to hear their laughter and we managed a quick trip up the Lakes on a glorious day with snow on the tops.  The Lake District at it's finest. This is Lake Coniston.

and this was the star at the zoo, only 10 days old.

Lakeland is the home of Derwent Pencils and having seen these recently I couldn't come home without them.

and these 

More about them soon but I am in love. I was also given some deli paper by a generous friend so as soon as I was unpacked I had to play. I created a piece of paper that looked, to me,  like the bracken and the rocks on the hills so this is my spread for this week.  Not to the brief which was "collage something you have recycled" but more a reflection of the week.
this is the cover

and this is the spread

Joy of joys you can use the inktense bars on the gelli plate. Trees are part of one of the first rubber stamps I bought.
The runner is "in progress".

Wk 8..

This is a post I never wanted to write. Wk 8 of the Documented Life saw the death of my brother.  He has fought courageously for two years against cancer of the jaw.

 I will miss him.

Wk 7......

TheDocumented Life challenge was  Draw one shape and repeat, add colour.  Well there has only been one topic of convesation this week.  The Weather.  It would seem that Australia is burning,  North America  is freezing and we are drowning. I chose diamonds as my shape and added the little rhyme by R.L. Stvenson.  "The rain is falling all around"  the cover is another recycled photo.The background is a gelli which looked to me like the land underwater.

For my runner I took the wind, the other feature of last week's weather. 

Miss......

"Strong and Miss" were the two words in the Craft Barn Q&L Challenge.  Nothing came to mind for "Strong" but my brain immediately started singing "Have You met Miss Jones?" and it wouldn't stop.  I love the songs Richard Rodgers wrote with Lorenz Hart better than the later ones with Oscar Hammerstein, take a look at this list, I bet you start singing one of them. Some time I was given a beautiful cabinet card by a friend, she looks like Miss Jones to me.  As it was Valentine's week and there were hearts everywhere they had to be part of the design but I didn't want red ones. So I used red card as the background and dug out all my heart stamps, stamped them with grey achival ink and die cut some Memory Box butterflies. So here she is.

and here is a version by the old smoothie Frank Sinatra.

Wk 6 Documented Life....

I seem to be all over the place with my numbers and last week was indeed Wk 6.  A bit more drama this week,a trip to August. Osage County at the cinema, strong stuff but riveting and good acting and a trip to see my daughter in From Here to Eternity the musical. strong stuff but riveting and good acting and then a  pleasant day at the Maylands stitching group.  All of which helped take the mind off the rain.
The Documented Life prompt was "Open your Pinterest board and be inspired".  Didn't take me long to try an emulate the work of Jill Ricci. I love her work so this is my attempt.  Gelli print background, snippets of other gelli prints and another old photograph.

 

Because it had to be folded into my journal I needed to make a cover so another photograph received the treatment. Don't do pink usually.

and for the runner I had palm trees and an aeroplane and the date of Pearl Harbour which is the climax of "From Here to Eternity". The sea is both for FHTE and for the dreadful battering our coasts are taking.

Sochi.....

I'm your girl when it comes to an opening ceremony and I enjoyed the one for the Winter Olympics.  I just loved the colour, I took these from the television so they are not sharp but a good reminder.

The colour is everywhere,, on all the venues and on the competitors and volunteers.

 
 This site has interesting descriptions of the various regions and types of art which where the inspiration.for the designs.Everything from shawls to painted boxes.

Marvel.....

Thanks to the Embrouderie blog I visited the web site of Michelle Carragher who embroidered the costumes for "The Game of Thrones"  TV series. 

This is a taster, if you like stumpwork and embroidery go and marvel..

Wk 4 and Oh dear!...

For Week 4 of the Documented Life the brief was to "add a doodle border to your page".  This tied in nicely with one of my latest book purchases "Zenspirations Dangle Designs" by Joanne Fink.







So far so good.  Then I decided I would throw out a lot (and I mean a lot) of old photographs and it was going well until I saw one and thought, I wonder what that would look like if I put it through the Big Shot.  
What happened became the theme of my page, here it is the larger circles are from a very out of focus photograph.

Oh dear, a use for the photographs......another thought this is a piece of sky from a very boring photo put through with an embossing plate, painted with craft paint, stamped with Distress Stain, there was a piece of paper on my desk which had the words in it, so here it is mounted on a piece of gelli print.

 Oh dear another use for the photographs...... and then this for my present "tree" decoration.

 The photgraphs have gome back in the box.

My runned band for last week has teeth, which were a big feature and celebrate an outing to see an amateur production of  "Avenue Q" performed by some very talented friends.  Great fun.

So that is January been and gone already.

Silence and Dazzle...........

..second challenge Q&L  prompt from the Craft Barn.,   I thought of "Give'em the Old Razzle Dazzle"  from "Chicago" but who remembers this gem.

Ah, those were the days!
But the song that stuck in my mind was "I loved you one in silence" from "Camelot".  I saw the original production of this at Drury Lane. It was a beautiful production and years later I drew heavily on my memories when I was wardrobe mistress for our amateur production.  I can't remember how many cloaks I made and working out which bit of armour went where.
But I digress, my first thoughts were to do something medieval and romantic but my lack of artistic skills prevented that and then I had a very silly thought.
 I thought of the wonderfully ridiculous shoes which are about at the moment.  I would love to own a pair but I at my age I know the pain they would cause.My slippers is where I'm at. So it remains an unrequited love affair.   Tenuous I know but if did let me make this dazzling shoe.

If you don't know the song this is Julie Andrews's vesion. Audio only.

Wk 4

Still managing to keep up....just.  It was a peculiar week.  A good theatre visit to see "Juno and the Paycock" at the Geoffrey Whitworrth theatre, a local amateur group with a very high standard. Rest of the week was a bit of a misery with various dental issues. Uck so my Documented Life this week looks like this.  The prompt was to write a message and then obliterate all but one word.  I won't tell you what I wrote but the page looks like this.

My runner is a bit more cheerful and records the theatre visit and the fact that the snowdrops are up in the garden.

Good job that we can see them from the window as gardening is out of the question. We are moaning about the weather but only mildly inconvenienced, my sympathies go to those who are so badly affected. 

Hearts...

Before Christmas I bought a white "tree" from Hobby Craft and we had it decorated with tiny lights and silver baubles.  When it was time to take the decorations down I decided I liked my "tree" a lot . Of course, it couldn't stay as a Christmas decoration and then inspiration struck and I decided for January and February it would be decorated in hearts. I have had fun making them in as many techniques as I could think of, both paper and stitch. I just make one when the mood takes me.   I added a little bird and a couple of paper butterflies. It usually stands on the table in front of the mirror.

but I took this against the wall for clarity.

 My plan is for March and April I will replace the hearts with eggs, when I change them over I will try to remember to take a photograph of the hearts.
In case your wondering, the snowscape painting in the background is not by me, I wish.....it is by Canadian Artist Bill Zuro.
First Embroiderers' Guild of the year on Saturday, so I better put my sewing head on.

Keeping up........

...... Just.

Bust week last week with a meeting of The Girls where we tried to get to grips with the mysteries of the Needle Punch.  I failed miserably but as a reminder of the fun trying I looked for a stitch for my  runner that would resemble the loops. Thanks to Mary Corbet I found Turkey Work and after a bit of trial error I managed two lines.

Documented Life this week was to use an envelope from the mailbox.  I received a store card and it was in a very nice folder which I decided was more interesting than an envelope.  Thursday was a trip to the pantomime at Erith Playhouse, "Beauty and the Beast", written and directed by a good friend, Great fun to boo and hiss and watch other friends being extremely silly,.  So I popped this into my "journal".

 

with the programme inside

Saturday was a trip to Bromley Embroiderers Guild to hear a talk by Lynda Monk.  as ever she was informative and amusing.  So generous with her knowledge and such wonderful things to see.  I bought two or her screens for printing and trying out some of the techniques she spoke about, so watch this space.


I promised myself that when I put something on my Pinterest board I would also put it here. The other  morning I found this.  Adding fabric to a tag..  I have done it to make book pages before but thought this has many possibilities.

 You can see the full tutorial here at Yours Artfully 

and this morning thanks to BJ of ccrafts corner I found this great use for old Christmas cards,


 I only hope I can remember it when the season comes round again.

Q & L.....

the new challenge from the Craft Barn. Although I had really enjoyed the Alphabet Challenge and  because I had already given myself two challenges, I wasn't going to take part in this one.  However......the Q and L stands for Quotes and Lyrics and two words are given as prompts.  First ones Smile and Up.....after four days of not being able to get this song out of my head I decided the only way to do it was to put something on paper. So here it is..my take on "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile" from the musical "Annie"

 I have chosen a smaller format this time. Gellie print and a mask I made from a magazine picture. I have printed the full lyrics and the creators names for future reference.   In distant historical times I played Grace Mr Warbuck's Secretary in an amateur production of Annie, I must have some photographs somewhere. When the children were little we used to play a car game where they gave me a word and I had to find a song, so I don't know why I hesitated in the first place. By the way, Up, Up and Away in my Beautiful Balloon was the other song which kept creeping into my head.   Off to see what everyone else is up to.

Chalk and cheese......

Two things I have come across this week.  Very different. First the entire Book of Kells  has been put on line by Trinity College, Dublin. You can zoom in to the tiniest detail, fascinating.

An for something completely digfferent this short film which is a tiny bit shudder making but I found it funny.
FILM: MAKEOVER (2013) from Don Percy on Vimeo. 

Documented Life....

   This is going to take some keeping up but here is week 2.  The challenge was to include a selfie, well the reality is a bit gruesome so I did a "self portrait".......with gelli print background.

and the flyer from the Designer Crafts.

For my band on my cloth I chose a couple of pots and paintings to represent the exhibition and a little representation of the National Gallery

 I think I am taking up a bit too much space and the cloth will be too long for the table but I suppose a couple of  boring weeks  would take care of that.

Weekend again...

I see this year is intending to travel at the same speed as last year.  I have just spent really good day in London. The weather was glorious, bright and crisp and this young man was looking very proud of himself.

It was a day that made you look up.

The main reason for the visit was the  Designer Crafts exhibition at the Mall Galleries. Lots to see and admire, stand out for me was the work of  Batool Showghi. If you like Mixed Media go look.
We wandered up Regent Street discussing what used to be where and into Liberty  to gasp at the prices of the, undeniably beautiful, fabrics but longing for the days when a remnant cost less that £12.95. Margaret Cooter has a very informative and link filled post on the big London department shops of yesteryear
We tottered along to John Lewis as Liberty no longer sells satin bias binding and and finally  to The Cloth House No 47 Berwick Street. such a lovely shop and people.  It was good to see it filled with so many young people choosing fabrics.

A good day but now self imposed challenges need to be addressed.

I've started..........

........but will I finish?  I was taken with the idea of The Documented Life Project. Plan to use a Moleskin planner and acting on weekly prompts fill the planner for one year.  I bought a small planner, as my handbag is always full to bursting,  and realised that this was going to get unwieldy pretty quickly. So, I already had an A5 sized sketchbook and decided I could if I scanned them I could use the entries from the diary/planner and create my documents in them.   I am wondering if I can sustain responding to a weekly challenge. The prompt for Week 1 was

January 1 Challenge (Week One) - photograph, sketch, paint or incorporate your front door. 

 So I "incorporated" my front door into the kind of house I dream about.  This one is Scotney Castle in Kent

 

I bought this charming book 

 and tried out a few flowers,
This is the diary page with a little collagraph I made as Art Van Go.

In tandem with this challenge I decided it would be fun to try and stitch an event from each week and create a table runner by Christmas.  If there is nothing outstanding I will add some stitching.  Here is our eventful journey on Saturday,

The rain doesn't show up very well but believe me it is/was there.

Here we go.....

...the decorations are tucked away for another year and the year has had a very busy start. Put my art prompts together.  I may embellish them a little more but for the moment they look like this.

Friday was our stitching group and I spent a happy day chatting and doing the boring bit of my quilt. Yesterday in spite of the atrocious weather we couldn't resist  the temptation to visit Art Van Go where Lynda Monk and friends were demonstrating thermofax and collagraphs.  Fascinating stuff. I was particularly delighted that with a bit of experiment I could use my Big Shot to make collagraph prints. Anyone know how to put a few more hours into each day?  I always wish AVG wasn't so far away but yesterday I made it a even further by going up the M1 instead of the A1(M). Never been to Luton before!.

Start.......

as you hope to go on.  I spent a lovely morning with my new large gelli plate, some cereal boxes and my Big Shot.  The result was 52 ATC's which I am hoping to turn into art prompts.  I started this back in the summer but like so many things it stalled, so with my New Year fervour I thought I'd try again.  I should have taken photographs but you know what the gelli plate is like you are carried away. The outside(printed) of the cereal cardboard gave me coverage problems but with a combination of  gesso, opaque Fresco Paints and a deal of layering I managed and felt very happy with my re-cycling.

Now to add a bit of stamping and the words.

Lynda Monk has been doing some wonderful things with Thermofax .Who knew fish and bird skeletons would look this good.