Friday, April 11, 2008

Pendant

My very talented musician friend, Billy, gave me two of his defunct oboe reeds last week and I've just made a pendant out of one of them.



I'm not sure it's finished, I may outline the word in some way yet, still pondering over that one! But since it's an age since I've shared any artwork I thought I would post it anyway! ;o)

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Photographic Wander

I'm having a bit of a chilled out week after the mania of the show last week and have been pleasing myself what and where I go. ;o) On Wednesday I had to return a library book to Downham Market, a town about 20 miles from here over the border in Norfolk. I go there relatively often and spent quite alot of time there in my childhood as my paternal grandparents lived there after their retirement. It was a gloriously sunny day and I decided to go for a walk after I'd visted the library and I discovered a cemetery that I didn't know existed. Although I played in the adjacent park as a child I don't suppose I was interested in graves then! LOL I spent an hour wandering about taking photos and, in lieu of any artwork, I thought I'd share some of my favourites here! My archive of photos for my cemetery artwork project is growing at a rate of knots!



This is the top of the Downham town clock.



A view of the parish church. I love the colours of this style of brickwork.



The lock and handle on the main church door. The key that fits that keyhole must be HUGE!



Love the patterning on this grave adornment.



I've recently taking a liking to photographing things looking up at them!



Some glorious moss growing on the top of a horizontal tombstone.



This little verse on a Royal Norfolk Regiment war grave brought a lump to my throat. He was just 23 years old.



More fab moss!



I've always wondered how this little lane got it's unusual name!

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Church Art Day

On Sunday FenVAC held an art day at a local church which is looked after by The Churches Conservation Trust. I couldn't stay very long as I had to be at a rehearsal but I had a great morning there and I thought I'd share some of my fave photos from those I took. ;o) It was a glorious day (although the weather forecast was for rain!) and the members who came along spent time sketching and painting and generally having a convivial time!

















Apart from taking photos, I did some sketching and also painted an acrylic! Although I use acrylic paints alot I don't actually paint with them as such so this was a first for me! I really enjoyed it and this is the end result:

Altered Compact

I was recently involved in an altered compact swap on Swap-Bot and this was my compact. Yet again, it wasn't very easy to photograph! I haven't altered the outside of the vintage compact as it was so pretty anyway but inside I have used tarnished copper discs joined with jump rings and added some stamping and a couple of my favourite quotes:

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. Part of Desiderata.

Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. Shel Silverstein

The bottom disc is glued in so the quotes aren't removable and I added some sparkly fibre as a little pull to open the discs out. I used dry transfer lettering to add the word "reflect" to the mirror. And, Bob's your uncle! :oD





Skinny Book

One of the members of my Yahoo group, Alter-NativeUK, recently had a beautiful baby boy and some of the group made her skinny book pages which I bound into a book as a little memento for her. Here's a few pics of it although it wasn't very easy to photgraph!