Peace Gardens

I have been making peace gardens for a few friends who have Spring birthdays. I save nice ceramic pots through the year, stencil them, and plant them up with bulbs around November time. I keep them cold and dark, and then around the end of January/beginning of February I have some nice sprouted bulbs. I then have to hope and pray that the bulbs do not flower before the birthday of the intended recpient! (If they threaten to do so then the recipient has to have their present early!). The final touches are to add decorations suited to the person they will be given to. I usually add candles, incense sticks, beads, and a small figure.

Here are some details from the "good kharma bunny peace garden" and "poetry peace garden" I hope the people I have given them to have as much enjoyment from them as I have had making them.

Art class week 3

Today our challenge was to do a tonal drawing from a picture of our choosing. I chose a photograph of Lindisfarne.







I was pleased with the drawing. It is a complete scene, and some of the elements of depth and texture work. However, there are some bits I want to change and develop. I think the midground rocks are too dark, and similarly the right hand sections of wall are too dark. Also the path is a bit dodgy, but I am not sure what to do about that section.



As for other aspects of the class... I am a creature of habit, and tend to sit in the same place in a classroom each week. The benefit of this is you get to know more about the people who sit around you (albeit at the expense of not getting to know those on the other side of the classroom). Today I learned that the chap who sits next to me (the one with the injured thumb) had once thought of buying the small cottage next to our house, and the chap who sits next to him used to be the policeman in our town 25 years ago. This came about because I showed them a picture of our house. My long-term project is to produce a drawing or painting of the house by the end of the term. Anyway, on seeing it they both exclaimed "that's old Sutton's place". And they were right. Our house used to be a dairy that was and is still known throughout the town as "Suttons".

Art class 2

Today was the second lesson of the term. There was snow on the ground, so I was unsure how many people would make it, especially as a large proportion of the class are elderly and/or infirm. Anyway, there were 12 of us, including one who didn't make it last week, and a completely new chap whose acrylic painting course had been cancelled, so he had signed up for our class belatedly.

It is always the case that newcomers to the course bring nothing on the first day - not a scrap of paper nor a pencil. The college advises that the tutor will tell everyone what materials they will need on the first day - but that doesn't help if you are empty handed for a 2 hour drawing lesson! Anyway, the group as usual was very supportive and offered paper and pencils to the new chap. He was determined he would sit out the first lesson and just observe, but Barry (the tutor) cajoled him into giving it a go.

I had the new chap on one side, and on the other side a chap who missed last week as he had an operation on this thumb, and so his arm (left arm thankfully!) was all strapped up.

We knew that the lesson was to be tonal drawing of flowers, but our hearts sank when we saw an array of battered silk flowers including roses, hyacinths, petunias and assorted foliage. Having hated boxes and jugs for so long, we now all felt very fond of the previous uniform objects we had had to draw.

The girl who had longed to draw flowers, was also dismayed as she had to portray them in black and white, when she longs to let rip with the colours of nature.

A major issue with still life in this class, is that it is held in a porta-cabin, with windows on 2 sides, and strip lighting above. So any sense of light source and shadow is very difficult to find and maintain.

Anyway - here is my tonal drawing of roses strewn across a desk next to small wicker basket. I am actually quite pleased with it. Although I missed a trick in choosing a very linear composition, and so I had little scope to try to portray depth in my picture. I like the fact that I drew very few outlines, instead concentrating on the contrast of light and dark. I am also pleased that I did not do a botanical drawing, but instead looked at the overall form of the flowers.



"Dancin' fool" always picks out her favourite element in any of my pictures, and this can be as small as a single petal or the handle of a jug. I look forward to hearing what she has to say, and I admire her ability to look into a picture at elements, and not just glance across a whole surface.

I am also looking forward to having a good friend visit this blog (You know who you are) and hope he will catch the blogging bug!

Homework!

This time round, I am determined to do some homework in between each of my art lessons. I know next week we are doing a tonal composition of flowers, so I thought I had better have a go at a tonal drawing of a flower. It should be no different from a box or a jug really... bit it is! It is the irregularity of the shapes I think that is causing me issues. Anyway - see what you think...






It's a daffodil by the way! - I think there are too many lines, and not enough tonal variation.

Where for Art thou?

In 2005 I signed up to an art course "painting and drawing for beginners" at a local college. I had missed the 2004 autumn term, so was joining for the last 2 terms of the academic year (spring and summer). It got off to a very rocky start on my first day, with me almost at the point of lodging a complaint against my tutor for bullying. But our first-week clash was soon forgotten, and I really enjoyed the course. In 2005 I did the autumn term to complete the 3-term course. 2006 was all over the place for me with my little boy starting school, and my father's illness, so I did not manage to rejoin the class.

Today however, I went back (again having missed the first term of the academic year!), and had a really good time. Two of the class were still there from Sept 2005, and one even from Jan 2005, but the others were new faces. It's an interesting mix of people and I will tell you more about them as the weeks progress. Today I identified:

2 petrified newbies;

2 old dears who chat and back chat all the session;

1 die hard technical draughtsman;

1 very interesting Asian woman who according to the tutor draws everything like a tapestry, and whom he is trying to "convert" to western art style;

2 grandmothers who have not drawn since school days and who are being argued out of cross hatching.

That leaves me, another of the returning students from 2005, and 3 absent pupils. I also learned that several of the pupils from previous years have progressed to the intermediate and even advanced courses. I wish them all good luck, and hope I might cross paths with them at the college, I would love to know how they are doing.

Having gossiped about the course, I had better show you what I produced:

Be kind... And tune in next week for more exciting stories from "Art from Charnwood Forest".

Alterations

I'm a user-interface designer, and one thing I know is you have to live a design for a while to find out if it really works. So I applied the same principle to the little purple purse that I posted before, and found it really worked better if the dinky little handle was sewn down as a strip to the purse flap.

So here is the amended item... I think it looks much better like this.

2006 reviewed

I was transferring birthday dates and other important stuff from lat year's calendar to this year's and had the idea of picking out a few key happenings from each month of 2006. It gave me an interesting perspective on last year:

January
Mum came to stay for a few days - first opportunity for her to spend any length of time with her grandson since she retired.
Birthday meal out at a local swanky restaurant (Gray Lady) - very difficult to find your way through the forest in fog!
Participated in a 2 week radio listening survey.
Commenced 3rd year of volunteering for local toy library.

February
2nd course of MMR imms for little boy - and same old worries about reactions.
Took little boy to local magic lantern show - old photos of local scenes.
Attended consulting course in Berkshire - remembered what my old life used to be like.

March
Joined the committee of the PTA for my little boy's school.
Took son and step-son for professional photographs in local photographer's studio (to commemorate the year of starting school and also GCSE year) - very pleased with result.
Little chap stopped attending day nursery (1 day a week).

April
Family holiday in Jersey.
Little boy started school part time.

May
Helped out at plant sale at school.
Attended Oaks country fair (annual tradition) - held in beautiful series of fields on a hillside - closest thing I have come to "Little House on the Prairie".

June
Manned the "pick a pot" stall at school summer fete.
Attended school sports day (did not take part in the mothers' race!).
Held a book party.
Launched blog site.
Small work project with educational software company.

July
Local carnival.
Mother, son and Aunty seaside holiday in caravan in Mablethorpe Lincolnshire.

August
Major design project for educational software company.
Attended local summer event including excavating dinosaur bones from giant sandpits.
Father taken seriously ill and in hospital for 1 week.
Husband and step-son on 2 week scientific expedition to Slovakia.

September
Grandmother dies - attend funeral.
Little chap starts school full time (difficult first couple of weeks).

October
Family trip to Legoland.
Small scale reunion with 2 old work chums.
Attended fashion and embroidery exhibition in Harrogate.

November
Little chap attends first school-chum birthday party.
Take son and friend to local church Christmas Fair.
Fireworks at local pub as community event not held this year.

December
Parents evening - good feedback on little chap's progress.
Small design project for educational software company.
Community carol service.
Family Christmas party.
Short break in Chester including a sunny hour on the beach in Prestatyn.

Orchids

It was my birthday yesterday, and as part of a pamper myself day, I set aside all afternoon to do some painting. Now usually this would mean emulsioning walls or ceilings. But this time, I got out my watercolours and had a go at painting some orchids which I received for Christmas.

I have mixed feelings about the results. I am pleased with some of the brushwork, but the overall shape of the orchid petals was very difficult, and is not right. The main thing, though, was that it was a very relaxing and enjoyable couple of hours. I have also signed up for another term of a painting and drawing class. I am really looking forward to spending some time each week on artistic pursuits.

Put to good use

I received some wonderful gifts this Christmas, including a great little book on handbags, and a wonderful selection of buttons and beads. So I put both to good use, to make a dinky little handbag shaped purse for a friend who shares the same birthday as me.


The purse is knitted in stocking stitch from hand dyed linen, and the handle is plaited wool and linen. I made the pattern up, and it is fairly basic, but if anyone is interested: cast on 20 stitches, work stocking stitch for approx 50 rows (or until the piece is twice the depth of the desired purse).


Continue in stocking stitch, knitting two together at the beginning and end of every knit row. Continue until the closing flap is narrow enough for your chosen fastening, cast off.


Cut a rectangle of linen to form the lining for the body of the purse (I left the flap unlined).

Sew the side seams of both the knitted purse and the lining, insert the lining and stitch around the top to fasten it to the purse. Use the tail of the yarn from casting off to make a loop for closing the purse. Attach a bead or button for the closure. Use buttons to attach the plaited handle to the purse.

Super heroes abound!

There is nothing quite so much fun as making fancy-dress costumes for children. I don't mean the kind from patterns published in books or magazines. I mean taking items you have and turning them into costumes, and all the fun of researching and deciding the details with your little one.

We did just this at the weekend, to come up with a fancy dress costume for my little boy's birthday party.

So from one old negligee, a pair of tights, some gold ribbon, yellow craft foam, an off-cut of black leatherette and an old pair of pants... batman was born...

Ignore the red socks and cuffs - on the day they will not be making an appearance. Do you think Bruce Wayne would have been proud? My little chap was unsure about wearing his pants over his trousers, but even he had to admit, that when we consulted the comic book, that was how the man (bat?) himself did it.

Q: What's brown and sticky?

A: A stick, of course! (sorry - that is one of my favourite jokes!)

My sister came across stitch and bitch sessions recently (one is just starting in Towcester - if any one wants the details let me know). She was shocked by the title and then intrigued, but reticent to join in as she is not really a knitter, although became quite fluent in finger knitting. So I told her about weaving sticks.

Stick weaving (see picture below) is a very simple and highly portable way of weaving. All that is needed is an odd number of sticks ( as many as can be comfortably held in the palm of one hand ) with a hole in the end of each one. The weaver would thread each stick, as they would a needle, with a desired length of wool, and knot each thread in place to make the warp. The weaver would then tie the loose ends of the threads together. Next, taking a ball of thread they would tie the end around one stick and begin to weave over and under the warp. The work was then pushed off the sticks onto the warp threads. When the work was completed the weaver would carefully cut the threads going through the sticks and tie them off securely. For more details see: http://www.history.uk.com/clothing

Above is a picture of a choker that I made a couple of years ago on weaving sticks. I have had many nice comments about it, and have been very pleased with the way it can be used to mix a number of fibres. And here is a picture of the weaving sticks with some weaving on them...

It's very simple, good fun, and most of all quick!

Straps, bracelets, chokers and belts are all easily made, and sections of weaving can be sewn together to make larger or more complicated shapes.

A diversion

To start the new year, I am being brave and showing a watercolour painting I did over the Christmas holidays. It was from a photograph in a book.

I took up water colour painting 2 years ago, but have not done any in the last 12 months for one reason and another (mainly my boy starting school and a number of small work projects).

Anyway I liked this one - this is actually just the part of it that my scanner could fit - but I am pleased with the enforced cropping, and shall try playing around with the rest of the picture (there is some moody sky which the scanner chose to ignore, and some more of the hills) until it all comes together. I am also thinking of doing another version with poppies in the fields (a bit like the old Cadbury's flake advert! - can you remember it?).

There is a funny story about my first painting lesson and Dahlias. I mention it to make those in the know laugh...