Tins!

Oops, who forgot to post to her blog yesterday? LOL

Spent some time in the studio yesterday, catching up on a couple of overdue commitments and trying to make some headway clearing my desk!



This what I'm dealing with! LOL It's all manner of detritus from whatever I've worked on in the last few weeks! As you will see it's pretty much a top priority on my to do list to clear this space so that I can get on with jewellery pieces for the little exhibition I'm having at the end of September. There's enough space to exhibit a maximum of 50 pieces of jewellery depending on size and how I display them so I need to work on getting them all finished by the end of August at the very latest.



After my Royal Academy adventure (see post later today!) I've been working on ideas for more pieces using tin cans. This is just one of the bags I have that's stuffed full of my treasure! I've been cycling alot recently and have been picking up cans out of the gutter on my travels, not to mention all manner of other groovy stuff, mostly metal, to play about with! My studio is full of bags of metal road kill! LOL

Henry Moore Foundation

I've really got out of the habit of blogging lately so I'm going to address that by trying to post something everyday for a while! ;oD I love artist blogs that have in progress style posts and news from the studio kind of stuff so I'm going to try for some of that, all the latest from Studio Ha Ha kind of thing! LOL

A few weeks ago I visited the Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green, Herts and had a fabulous day out. ;o) I really like Henry Moore's work but didn't know much about it or about him so I was looking forward to discovering more.

First, we visited Hoglands, the cottage at Perry Green where Moore and his wife, Irina, lived from the 1940s. It was fascinating to see their home and how they lived. They had a big collection of artwork which is set up in the house as it was when they lived there. There's lots of tribal art, a Rodin bronze, a Degas and a Picasso - in the kitchen, where we all have our Picasso pieces! LOL Outside the house there's two studios to visit (the Etching Studio and the Top Studio) which was fabulous, I love to see the artist's working environment.

After visiting the house, we set off to explore the grounds which are full of sculpture. ;o) I haven't seen any Moore sculpture up close and it was great to be able to get so close. The grounds are extensive and the sculptures are in fabulous settings.

One of my favourite parts of the visit was seeing the Bourne Maquette Studio. It is filled with maquettes for Moore's sculptures. It was fascinating to learn about the processes involved in how Moore developed his sculpture ideas.

All in all, I had a marvellous day and here are just a few of my favourites of all the photos I took!


Double Oval was one of my favourite pieces.



I took lots of shots of this one, it was excellent to be able to effectively get "in" the sculptures!


The surface textures on Moore's sculptures are really interesting. He used all manner of everyday objects to make marks with.


A view from Three Piece Sculpture: Vertebrae looking towards King and Queen and Locking Piece.


Mother and Child: Block Seat is in a lovely wooded setting.


Large Upright Internal/External Form was another of my favourites, I loved all the curves and took a multitude of different angles!


Another view, looking upwards.


Log pile in the wood, I just liked the order!


Foxglove in the Moore's garden, I love the contrast with the brick wall behind it.


A garden view.


Close up of Locking Piece.


View through the hedgerow towards Large Reclining Figure.


Sheep! Henry Moore and I have a love of sheep in common! This field is rented out to a local farmer with the proviso that sheep are grazed there. There are several sculptures in the field including Working Model for Sheep Piece (see next photo).


Working Model for Sheep Piece with sheep!


Part of Family Group.


Close up of Figure in a Shelter.

Journal page

Thought it was about time I shared some art as it seems ages since I have! I've just launched a self portrait journal out into the world and this is my effort in it:



I printed the image on glossy photo paper and then altered it using bleach, scratching with a pin, sanding, crayon over rubbing plate, pens and an embellishment.

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)

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!

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!

Assemblage

This is another piece I made recently, assemblage this time. The base of this is a vintage wooden table mat. I've used these before and they're really sturdy and can take alot of abuse! ;o) Added to the base is the lid of a vintage tin, attached with copper nails, topped with a cake mould of some sort, a vintage bottle of rusty pins and copper wire. Hey presto!

Pendant

Wow, it's so long since I posted to my blog! Fortunately my pc is back from hospital safe and sound and is behaving impeccably now. :o)

I made this pendant about the time my pc died so haven't been able to download the photos from my camera until now. I really enjoy making jewellery pieces and want to explore it alot more. The base of this piece is a squashed jam jar lid I picked up somewhere! It amuses me no end to take discarded objects and give them a new lease of life. ;o) So, we have the jam jar lid base and then a flattened petit four tin, a broken earring and some coloured wire. I've experimented with backing the piece with leather but I'm not entirely happy with it although it is comfortable to wear. Since I made this I've learnt how to pop rivet which is great fun and I can tell I'm going to use the technique loads! Anyway, not a brilliant picture but here's the pendant:

Urban Graffiti Altered Book

Wow, this is my 200th post to this blog! ;oD

Yesterday I finally finished my Urban Graffiti altered book for a swap on my Yahoo group. It's long overdue and has been a difficult project for me to complete. The idea for the swap was mine and was inspired by street art and stencil graffiti artists et al but not long after the swap was set up I began to feel totally blocked about it. ;o( I extended the deadline twice and still my Muse stayed on strike but inspiration finally struck in November and I was on the point of organising a trip out to photograph graffiti when I landed myself in plaster! However, my photographer friend, Rob, came to the rescue with some graffiti shots that he'd taken and I was off and away at last!

The book I chose is quite large - about 11" by 18" - and I removed alot of pages before I started on the six planned spreads. The idea for the book was to make the spreads look like the walls in the photos with the photos stuck on them if that makes sense! I tried to choose different parts of the photos to depict and I also used different media to get different effects on the pages. These included gesso (white and black), acrylic paint, watercolour paint, crayon, oil pastel, pencil, coloured pencil and marker pen. I wanted a layered look so that sections of different spreads showed whichever spread the book was opened at.

So, here we go with some pics of the finished book!


I used aluminium tape for the cover and used black Staz-On ink to grunge it up a bit! The stencilled title is done with a black Sharpie pen. I really like the look of the tape background and might experiment with the technique some more. I couldn't get the Staz-On to dry though and ended up spraying the cover with acrylic varnish.


First spread.


Second spread.


Third spread.


Fourth spread.


Fifth spread.


Sixth spread.


Close up of the end of the last spread.




Just a couple of shots looking at the whole book from different angles.