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!

Studio Tour!

After my recent decluttering/reorganising/tidying mission in my newly christened studio (formerly known as my craft room or my art room or just my room!) I took some photos while it's looking pristine (well, as pristine as it gets!) to share on here. So, here we go with the guided tour!



Ok, so, here we are looking at the back of the door! Ooh, how exciting I hear you cry! The bookcase came from Ikea's casualty bay and fitted the gap behind the door perfectly. It's way overloaded, of course, and is one of the sections I still need to declutter. Mr S put hooks and a magnetic board on the side to make the most of the space. ;o)



This area is all new! Until Monday it was just a massive heap! The little table was where it is now but was piled SO high it was an amazing feat of engineering! LOL The racking used to be in the room in a different position and has enjoyed a sojourn in the spare bedroom before it's return. The creation of another workspace at the little table means I have more room to have different pieces out on the go and also that I can have arty friends over to play! :oD



This is my main workspace. As the windows of our house are so small it was the only place for me to have my desk really if I wanted any natural light. I love sitting in front of the window listening to the birds and feeling the breeze as I tinker about. ;o)



This is one of the 1960s kitchen larder cupboards that we bought earlier this year. We actually bought one but the owner offered us two smaller ones so we took all three. My in-laws had a very similar one which they used up until they moved house in the early 1990s when, horror of horrors, it went in a skip! I wasn't into vintage at the time, if only I had been! Anyway. it's very roomy and has masses of stuff crammed into it! The heap on the floor is some of the (mostly) metal goods that came from my late FIL's sheds. I want to work on pieces incorporating this stuff so it's out where I can see it and think about potential pieces. The chest of drawers on the right is really quite flimsy and the drawers are groaning somewhat! :oD I think this may be replaced for a stronger beast at some point in the future!



Moving on, we have my two vintage filing cabinets gleaned from Freecycle. Again, very capacious and crammed with all manner of goodies! The map drawers on top of the cabinets were being thrown out at Mr S's workplace so he brought them home for me, knowing how much I'd love them! One of the drawers holds my rubber stamp collection, just! The cupboard on the wall was a car boot find. I think it had a previous life in some sort of medical capacity. It's not very deep but has lots of narrow shelves. I'd like to change the curtains for something a bit jazzier at some point. And there you have it, to the right of this pic we're back to where we started with the door.

Sketch

I've come to the decision that I REALLY need to get back to some regular drawing! :oD This is a pen sketch I did at the beach yesterday afternoon. I added some watercolour tonight but it didn't really perk it up much! LOL

New Skill

My lovely husband has finally given me some instructions on soldering and this evening I made these little babies:



Well, I say made, they're vintage fuses and I've just soldered the loops to the top. Some of them are destined for a piece I'm working on inspired by my recent back problem and I feel some earrings coming on too! Oh, happy day! I do love learning something new! :o)

Background Technique

After coming up with the background for the art journal spread in my previous post I decided to have a play with what I'd done and see if I could recreate the look or whether it was a fluke! :oD I'm sure I haven't invented a new technique here but here's what I did, start with glossy card, a stack of Staz-On ink pads and some different plastic foils (like Tonertex). I got a good layer of one colour of Staz-On over the card and then, while the ink was still wet, I slapped the foil down. When I removed it some of the metallic foil had stuck to the wet ink. I then just continued in the same vein, alternating layers of Staz-On and foil. As it involves foil (which bounces off the light when scanned) these scans don't quite capture the delicious nature of the colours but here they are:

Journal Spreads

I've spent much of today at my friend Becky's place having some arty time together. :o) This is my spread in a travel/holidays themed art journal for the Yahoo group Travelling Journals.



Although I've never been there I chose Australia for my spread. I would love to go there and also to New Zealand one day. This is supposed to be Aboriginal-esque! The spread is upside down in the journal, of course! After I'd stamped Australia in the box with the middle three letters upside down it dawned on me that, for anyone going through the journal the right way up, TRA spells ART! Wish I could claim that I did it with intention but alas I can't! LOL

Another project I'm working on via the Travelling Journals group is a journal swap where players work in a journal for a month and then send their journal to another player for them to keep. This is my favourite spread so far in the journal I'm working in. Annoyingly, the book I've chosen to use, is just a tad too long for my scanner! I love the background I made for this spread so wanted to keep alot of it visible!



Now, onward to arty play time at my friend Skippy's this evening!

Stencilling

Everywhere I go in blog land I seem to come across stencilling and I've been hankering to jump on the bandwagon so today I bought a couple of cans of spray paint from a pound shop and this evening I had a play with them out in the garden. This is some of my experimenting:



It was great fun and I can see why it has an addictive reputation! LOL I also had a play with some stencils in an art journal I'm working in at the moment. I'll post some pics of that when I've finished the spreads I'm working on. If you haven't tried it yet then I can highly recommend it!

Art Journal Spread

Haven't had much time for arty matters this last week or so on account of a rotten cold that knocked me for six but here's an art journal spread from just before the germs arrived:

A bit of old rusty tin!

Yep, a bit of rusty old tin, that's exactly what I'm sharing with you:



I picked this up as I walked up to meet M & E at dog agility this evening. See, to me, this is a rather gorgeous artefact that will be incorporated into a piece of artwork but to you, maybe, it's a rusty cigar tin lid worthy only of being thrown away! So, which is it to you?? Silly though this may sound, I look at this tin lid and I know that leaving my job is the right move! What say you??

AB Spread

This is my spread in an Alice in Wonderland altered book in the children's literature RR I'm taking part in. It's not a brilliant picture as I had to photograph it instead of scanning. I really enjoyed doing this although I'm sure everyone after me will curse at the 3D nature of the spread when they're trying to work on their spreads!

A few more spreads in my art journal. When I saw the donkey pic from a children's book illustration I just had to do a Shrek inspired spread! My daughter and I quote that line from the film all the time!

Metal Goodies

I thought I would share a pic of some of the goodies I've salvaged from FIL's sheds for arty purposes! This is a fraction of what we've brought home - FIL was an inveterate collector/salvager/recycler and his sheds have been a treasure trove for me. I'm not sure quite what he'd make of it all though, bless him!



The patch of dark on the left is a mass of Blakies - who remembers those? - all different shapes and sizes, they're going to be great to use. FIL had oiled them all to prevent them rusting so they had to have a good soapy wash! I adore copper and there's lots of it in different forms - sheet, nails, locks, wire of varying thicknesses, allsorts! The keys have the most beautiful verdigris on them. :o) I also have a collection of tins, different sizes and in varying degrees of condition which I can't wait to use. Any artwork I make with these items will, for me, be a fitting tribute to my FIL's tenacity.

Art Journal Spreads

Whilst doing battle with back pain this past week I have at least managed to spend some time working on spreads in my art journal and in lieu of anything else to share here they are! I won't go into lengthy explanations about any of them (my pain threshold for sitting at the pc is about to reach it's limit!), so if you have any burning questions feel free to ask!

Playtime

I spent some time tinkering about up in my art room this evening, flicking through books, sorting scraps and reorganising stuff. After a while I started playing with various bits I was unearthing and this is the result:



I'm not sure if it's a journal page or a collage or what, a combination of both maybe! Whatever she is it was a happy bit of no pressure playtime and may become one of my Arty meme pieces! No, I haven't forgotten!!

Cemetery Pics

In view of the lack of creating I've done this last week I thought I'd share some of the many cemetery photos I took in the cemetery in St Jean de Braye on my recent French trip. Even though it was pouring with rain I dragged my two long suffering friends round to gather inspiration for the cemetery theme I'm working on for Creative Journey.



This little glass cross was just lovely. the colours really pinged out on the dismal rainy day although this photo really doesn't do them justice.



I loved the yellow lichen on this stone cross.







These wrought iron crosses were really popular in the cemetery. It was difficult to get decent photos of them because of the backgrounds but I tried!



Another lichen photo! There lots of these ceramic ornaments on the graves, mostly floral, and although they're generally not my cup of tea I did love the way the green lichen was creeping over this one.



This reminded me of a wood block print!



These ornaments were really popular. I don't know what they're made of but I'm guessing it must be some sort of resin. Again, I didn't particularly like them but I love the idea of exploring my cemetery theme using resin. It's not a medium I've dabbled in before but I'm looking forward to investigating and getting down to some experimentation!

Altered Game Cards

In a week of so many other things, this was one of very few artful moments! I altered a couple of game cards to send to friends.

Necklace

Spent a little while this morning rummaging about in my lovely metal stores! :oD On a whim (oh, aren't whims just fab?!) I made myself this necklace:



I was in something of a strop when I went up to my art room this morning and making this has eased my mind considerably! I've got my appraisal (groan!) at work this afternoon and I shall be wearing this as a reminder to myself that I'm not a sheep and nor do I ever want to be! LOL

Poppies

In pursuit of getting back into the arty groove I sat in the garden this evening and had a sketching moment, drawing the poppies.

Chunky Book Pages & Sketch

It's SO long since I posted anything and at last I have have got down to some artiness and have something new to share. :o)

Last night I went to my friend Becky's for some art time and inbetween laughing hysterically about pasties (NOT the Cornish kind!) I managed to make three chunky book pages. Here are two of the pages:



No great shakes but it felt good to get back to actually DOING!

Inspired by meeting Anita Davies,chair of the Fenland Visual Arts Collective, earlier this week I decided to resurrect my abandoned policy of drawing every day in an attempt to improve my drawing skills. Today's effort was just too poor to show the world but this was yesterday's: