Symbols Piece

On my Yahoo group we recently had a symbols swap. Each player supplied a list of symbols they use regularly in their artwork and then another player made a piece of artwork in their own style but using someone else's symbols. Does that make sense?? I was working on my piece when FIL died and have been somewhat blocked ever since. I had several attempts at different pieces before finally getting to what would become my actual swap piece! I think I just had a mental block on it because after FIL died I wasn't doing much, if any, art for a good while and when I came back to the piece I just felt completely stymied whenever I looked at it. Fortunately the fog finally lifted yesterday and here it is:




I managed to use seven of the twelve symbols on my partner's list;

greens, golds, going on yellow or brown (brown vintage tablemat, yellow sardine tin lid, hanging trim)
poetry quotes (lines from a Longfellow poem)
rectangles (sardine tin)
chequerboard effect (metal mesh)
triangles (Blakies)
stars (gold stencilled stars on base, metal star on sardine tin)
dots (copper nails)

Art Doll

I've been participating in an art doll swap on my Yahoo group and this is mine. She started life as a fork and I gave her a restyle by bending the tines. ;oD Her "dress" is copper and blue wires just wound around, very therapeutic activity! After some tinkering about I managed to attach her clock face! Her arms are copper wire with plastic beads that have seen better days but I felt they suited my doll much better than shiny new ones. Her legs are one of my soldered vintage fuses and part of an earring. Once she was finished I decided to mount her onto something and so she reposes on a big piece of tringular metal that I liberated from the shed! I couldn't get a decent shot of the entire piece as the flash kept bouncing off the metal so this is just the actual doll portion, not a brilliant pic but hopefully you get the idea!

Women in Art Video

Check out this cool video on YouTube. I loved it! ;o)

Sketches

Just a couple of pages from my sketchbook on holiday. Last year I drew (well, tried to! Who remembers the sheep with a wooden leg?? LOL) alot of sheep, this year the theme has been boats!

Photos

I thought I would share a few pics from my holiday. There's some more normal holiday pictures here too!





A couple of sand pattern pics. I took several on Red Wharf Bay beach and could have taken loads more! The patterns were all great and the late afternoon sunshine fell just right on the sand.





These are close ups of a weathered anchor at Amlwch harbour. I do, as you know, have a passion for rusty metal! ;oD



On one of our walks we passed the church of St Eilian in Llaneilian and I spent some time taking photos in the churchyard. I have a lovely collection of pics of headstones with Welsh writing now. ;o) This was the bolt on one of the gates of the churchyard which I really liked.



These are the bricks on the inside of an old brick kiln oven at Breakwater Country Park at Holyhead. The quarry made all the bricks for the breakwater in Holyhead harbour and you can walk round the ruins of the buildings.





These are close ups of one of the sculptures at The Dingle in Llangefni. I took lots of photos here, the sculptures were lovely and The Dingle itself is very peaceful.



A disused railway line runs through The Dingle, which is in a wooded valley, and I took lots of pics of the overgrown bridges and railway tracks. I love this one!



This lovely old tree is in the walled garden at Penrhyn Castle.



This rusty, decaying window ironwork was set in a wall along a pathway up to the cliff tops in Bull Bay.

Stencil Graffiti

While we were away on holiday last week I spotted some stencil graffiti as we were driving through a forest park:



Hardly cutting edge but quite sweet and gentle I thought. ;o) I got some very odd looks from folk driving by as I took photos! DH didn't understand what it meant until I explained that the fairies use the speed bump as their tunnel to cross the road safely! ;oD

Necklace

I also made a necklace this morning. It's for a good friend of mine who is currently in Australia and feeling very home sick. ;o( She's having a tough time and I hope this will cheer her a little. My digital camera won't do close ups very well and I just can't get it to sit nicely on the scanner, disobedient little thing! So, not a brilliant pic! Roll on the advent of my new digital camera!

ATCs

I'm once again playing catch up on overdue swap commitments after my week away and these are two ATCs for a "getting to know you" swap on the Unlimited Textiles Yahoo group. The deal is to make ATCs that show your style. Since I don't really have a textile style I've plumped for metal, naturally! Not sure what the recipients will make of them especially if they're expecting something in fabric! ;oD The background is a mustard tin that I had knocking about. I chopped it up and sanded it a bit, you know how I can't be doing with bright and shiny! LOL The two lower copper discs on the first ATC are from my experiments with the salt & vinegar crisps technique in Metalcraft Discovery Workshop. I joined the group because I'd like to experiment with using fabric more in my artwork. While I was making these ATCs I was thinking about combining fabric and metal in some pieces, looking forward to a play in that direction!