The Joy of Snail Mail

Saying 'Yes', and 'I'll fit it in', have been  my mantras. In the past few months though, I've slowly  begun to stop and pay attention to the moment.

The world is becoming faster paced, there's a constant stream of information to receive and process,  endless lists of 'stuff to do'; social media and the dreaded busywork fill any gaps! We strive to cram in more and more.

 'Wasn't it a beautiful day today?'  ' Uh, I dunno, I was too busy to notice...'

Digital media gives us speedy and efficient communication (and it's the most brilliant source of information for any multi pod and trivia addict.) I've always relied on it heavily. Lately though I've realised I need to take a side road on the journey to revive and refresh myself.

Luckily, the solution was staring me in the face!  Your Beautiful Letter  is the brainchild of writer and illustrator Naomi Bulger. I've been following Naomi's blog for some time. I love her approach, which is basically, helping busy people rediscover their creativity and forge more meaningful connections through the process of writing letters - by hand.

'What,' I hear you say,'Why? Everyone knows how to write a letter. Besides, who has time today, that's what e-mail, text and DM's are for!'

I agree, technology has its place, and it's incredibly useful, but, don't we all love getting a real, live, personal letter?

Haven't you felt that rush of excitement when you hear the 'click' of the letterbox and look down to experience the joy of seeing a handwritten envelope falling on the doormat?

You pick it up, excitedly. Without any further ado, the handwriting tells you this is something very personal.

First, you guess who it's from. Do you know the handwriting?  What's the postmark ? Have they put a return address on the back? Hmmm, maybe you still can't work it out.

The excitement mounts. You open the envelope and realise it's from...... ! There are two sheets of paper and maybe a little something enclosed. You can hardly wait to know what the pages contain, but, you know you have to read them. No skimming over printed text here. This is something beautiful and unique. It's  been thoughtfully created, and crafted by hand, just for you.  You need to ponder over the handwriting, consider the words, and digest the content.

Maybe you need to wait, anticipating until you can sit in comfort with a coffee, so you can read and savour the knowledge that someone, somewhere, has made you feel special, and cared for.

Naomi's class has made me look at things differently. I don't want to give too much away, but she talks about writing and stories; about living in the moment and connection, as well as offering lots of practical advice and some things which are just fun! It was a delight and  lifted me.

I can honestly say since I took this class I've written over 10 letters, sent snail mail all over the world, each with some mail art on the envelopes. I've focused on slowing down to think and write, and connect. It really didn't take me very long. Letters don't need to be 20 page novellas. A handwritten note or a postcard is a wonderful start.

It means something.

I heartily recommend visiting Naomi.  She's encouraged me to become a writer who writes again. Ooh look, a blog post!                             

'Beautiful British Bees' - Microscopy Art Workshop with Cath Hodsman

We all know bees are amazing pollinators,  and part of the lifeblood of our planet, but, did you know  for instance that worker honey bees are really so cute and fluffy close up? And that they  have been trained to 'sniff' out drugs and explosives more quickly than dogs? They are simply, amazing!

Cath Hodsman is a nationally acclaimed wildlife artist, who's specialty is bugs! (Entomology for my posh readers :) )  I had an amazing time last week, first, learning many new and fascinating facts about the honey bee, and then studying, and drawing them under the microscope, using Cath's expertise and knowledge to guide me.

For someone like me, who's passionate about nature, art and detail, this was a truly wonderful experience!

Here's my Worker honey bee, outside hind leg x 15 magnification.

It's incredible when the teeny tiny little thing on your slide suddenly becomes this  huge, amazingly detailed furry limb!

Cath explained how to actually take a photo through the microscope itself. (This is not a great shot as it's really hard to do, you can hardly breathe;  but, it gives an idea of what we were looking at, and some of the incredible detail.)

 Cath suggested we also do a label, which was great fun to play around with after the intensity of using the microscope. I loved using it, but it is an entirely new way to draw, and can initially, cause eye strain.  You must take breaks. We worked in graphite and colour pencil on hot press watercolour paper,  building up layers after laying the initial foundation drawing.

 

Cath explaining something - opposite  my workstation with microscope and slides!

For anyone worrying, all Cath's 'subjects' are natural bee deaths and very reverently preserved and looked after. She's a passionate conservationist and a lady after my own heart! There was a lot of fun and laughter during the day.

                Fellow students at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden, enjoying our day.

Here are a couple of examples of Cath's work, please visit her website to see more of her beautiful art.

I thoroughly recommend her workshops. The knowledge I gained will help me in my nature art journaling, and, in helping to save our precious bees!

Deer, Roe deer, Roe deer....

Deer have been much in my mind of late, and then I saw Tammie's invitation to this drawing challenge!  A while ago I was thrilled to find a Roe deer antler on the marshland behind our home, and made a journal entry about it.

These deer are British natives. Unlike most deer species, they are solitary, but form small groups in the cold months.  I though I'd try some wintry sketches of a buck...

 and a doe.....

 
Then this evening,  I got a tweet from the National Trust, who saw this photo I took of the Fallow deer herd at Dyrham Park. They loved it and asked if they could use it in their social media promotional material! So I'm feeling that deer are very dear today!

Poppy Seedhead Writing folder

This is the second sample for my winter mixed media workshop, and it's very different from my usual approach. I had fun with this one!

 I wanted a particular effect,  which I could see in my head!  I drew a poppy head stamp and used Koh-I -Nor paints to stamp on the fabric. When dry I sponged and splattered the background so it would partly merge and cover the images. Then I took back some of the coloured areas with bleach. I free machined around the poppies and finished  the image using  a little hand embroidery. It was fused onto some hand dyed silk and a piece of vintage lace added for some texture/overlay.

Inside I used some of my naturally dyed cotton to line the case. An unbound strip of silk with more vintage lace holds the hand made notelets in place. They are made from recycling wallpaper lining paper, which has been painted and stamped with another poppy head image.

Finally there's a simple tie with painted wooden beads to finish it off!

In a Blue Mood

Last week didn't end well. Our car was hit by an out of control vehicle on the motorway. We're ok now, but it was a horrible shock and we are still going through all the hassle with insurance etc,  and hoping the car isn't written off. Amazingly, no one was seriously injured for which I am devoutly thankful.

As you can imagine, this has put me out of sorts for a few days, and not much work has been done. I did have a lovely  relaxing afternoon sketching with the Urban Sketchers Bristol/South West  (if you're on Face Book, apologies to  those who aren't) on Saturday, when the sun shone,  but did more chatting than sketching. I haven't been able to settle  to complete my workshop sample, but I have started thread doodling again.

Although I don't consider myself a 'blue' person, this slate blue hue calls to me and its now one of my favourite colours.

Originally, I  drew the flower as a motif on some tea dyed calico, but felt I needed to go on with the process after stitching it.
I used just plain stranded cotton in different shades of this grey blue colour.

 

I didn't use beads or objects to accentuate the stitching, but just described the texture by using different stitches.

  

It did give me a lot of opportunity for knots too :) 

Thanks to everyone for the dyeing tips and info, which has been so helpful.  I plan to tint more fabric as soon as I don't feel quite so tired and achy, and when it finally stops raining!  

Brown Paper and Stitch Book

Another  experiment - working with recycled material. Inspired by my workshop at the end of last summer with  Frances Pickering  I wanted to make a simple book using paint and stitch. This little prototype is made entirely from the brown paper packing material used by a well known on-line company (other brown papers are available!) :)

 I've been  playing about with the momigami, (paper kneading) technique, I found in Cas Holmes
 ' The Found Object in Textile Art'. I'd love to know if anyone else has used it?  The cover was molded and bonded  to stiffen it - and hopefully make it durable! It gave a nice, leathery effect.

Inside colour pencil worked  quite effectively  on the dyed paper. 

On the right are a couple of blank notebooks I put together with momigami covers.

 This is my favourite page. I have a thing about the arum family!

 I'm happy with this and learnt a lot of useful things making it!

One of the good things about being a curious bumblebee is that  you can buzz back to the same flower. Over the last few weeks, I find myself being drawn back more strongly to embroidery.

Isn't it odd though, that when you feel the need for a change,  the past rears its head?
Last week I had three separate enquirers asking me if they could see my dolls - and would I run a doll class again?  It was  lovely to be asked - then I realised I hadn't actually got one single place with my photos  - so I decided to add some new pages here. It did seem strange to put them back on my blog, after all!

Rustic Sunflower Needlecase

Here's another one I made earlier.
I suspect I'm a little bit obsessed with needle cases; I seem to make a lot of them. Probably because they're useful, don't take an awful lot of work, plus you only need to sew reasonably straight lines!

This lovely rustic linen called out to me from a fabric shop in Bath. 'You need me' it cried, and everyone in the shop turned round in amazement!
Ok, I made that up, but we all know the little voice, don't we? It niggles at us when we see the pretty/interesting/ new item we can no longer live without. Even though I'm trying hard to simplify and recycle, I'm not immune to its enticements.....

The linen's almost like a high quality feedsack, and very rough.  I wanted to paint on it and wondered  how Inktense pencils would work. Not bad, as it turned out. I doodled my favourite flower, and added some text and stitch.

I really like this motif,  it tends to be my go-to doodle! I repeated it on the back, this time working on calico first for some variety in texture, and then fusing  this to the linen.  I wanted to keep the naive, rustic effect, so I mixed  up the stitching, Actually, I think I could equally have reversed the back and front images, but hey ho....

 Inside I made my usual lined pockets on each side, bound with some old chocolate coloured silk and then cut out dark brown wool felt for the needle holder.

 

Another tiny sunflower appears when the felt is lifted, having just pushed up from the soil below.

 He -llo!
(If you've seen 'Gnomeo and Juliet' this will make perfect sense to you, if not,  sorry!)

Can I say a big thank you for all your lovely comments on my re-emerging posts. I hope I've managed to visit or e-mail everyone,  but if I haven't got to you for any reason, please know I am really grateful for your support. x

Embroidery rescue - renovating a tee shirt.

Hello, lovely peeps, I'm  back  blogging  -  with grateful thanks to Rachel - Virtuosew Adventures for all  her help.

So without further ado - here's some embroidery. I've had this top for ages, it wasn't expensive, but I rather like it. Of course, it got stained. Right on the front, and really noticeable. I thought I'd have to recycle it,  but decided to see if I could disguise the mark. It's tee shirt fabric,  but I like a challenge! I wasn't at home, and had limited resources with me,  so I just drew on some freehand flower shapes with my trusty sanguine Pitt pen (archival ink), and used  2 strands of regular 6 stranded cotton thread.

It worked pretty well.

Here's a close up of  my renovation of a second  marked top, which, flushed with the success of the first one, I'm now desperately trying to save too!   I used  outline stitches and Chinese knots as satin/filling stitches were too dense for the jersey knit.  I couldn't use a hoop for stitching, as I usually do,  but ensuring the needle went between the knit rows wasn't too hard, and made certain there was no puckering.

A successful renovation, which will get a bit more wear out  of  a favourite top!

 

Focusing on the Ordinary - and finding answers

Every Day Matters.

 'Yes, of course', some of you may say.
Others will nod and murmur ' Ah, EDM,  Danny Gregory' and possibly Sketchbook Skool. Chances are if you're reading this you'll know what I'm talking about.

Sharon explains and demonstrates how EDM (and other interesting creative  things) in  her excellent blog Tones and Tints.  It's really worth a visit, and if you're a stitcher, then you'll probably know her already from one of my favourite blogs  Pintangle. There's also a thought provoking post from from Sarah,  here.

Sometimes, having diverse creative interests is awkward.
After feeling elated on completing the 31 Days sketching challenge last week  - I felt lost.   It had sparked off so many wonderful new creative ideas, but how could I possibly implement them all?  My focus went walkabout. It didn't even wave goodbye!

So - at embroidery class, I took some books about learning to draw for  my friend and class participant  Alison, which included  Danny's 'The Creative License'.  I explained  the concept and background  to EDM,  and recording our lives through art. This was a new idea to  my group, but they really took it on board -  we ended up talking about the importance of creativity and marking our lives. Not just the big events, but the little things - and, the different ways in which we can do this through our creativity.

We didn't actually get much stitching done, but it was wonderful to feel the enthusiasm, ideas and interest - and the understanding of the importance and connection of creativity in daily life. I must admit I got a real buzz from it.

I'd been a bit of a silly old Jules. Far better to have a store of ideas, but to concentrate on the now.  Explaining this to others made me really remember it's the journey that's important. The willingness to continue learning, and practice, patience and perseverance are all that's needed. Instead of worrying - just do it. Focus returned. She was a bit tired and hungry, but  I made her a big bowl of soup, and we're settling down nicely.

OK, I am going to inflict more sketches on you. I've still been drawing every day, and I'm taking a new class with  renowned Urban Sketcher and illustrator Marc Taro Holmes - 'Sketching People in Motion'.  via Craftsy.  It is, absolutely, fantastic.  He's a brilliant teacher and these are my first two complete sketches, created while watching video.  I would never imagine I could, sketch anyone moving,  so I can't praise this class highly enough. I can't wait to get out and practice gestural sketching now.

  Classical violinist

Classical guitarist.

The guitar is totally off, but I don't care. They were moving! Whoopee!
Do check out Marc's blog and stunning art on the link. x

31 Days Sketches is finished!

I did it! A sketch for every day in January - and some. I feel  proud of myself. I had fun,  pushed the boundaries and made some new friends on the way. What more can you ask? Thank you lovely peeps for your supportive comments  - which  help keep you going (especially when you  think you some sketches are not worth posting!).
 Here are the last few. 

 Flags or hangings: I had to draw the beautiful hanging made for my by my friend Starr White of Wonderland Woods. It hangs by my work table and gives me such pleasure and inspiration every day!

 Transport: This is 'The Matthew', a replica of the caravel sailed by John Cabot  from Bristol to North America in 1497. He was searching for Asia,  but discovered New-found-land! The ship was faithfully recreated and undertook the same voyage in 1997. She's now based in Bristol's Harbourside.

Something Ancient: The lovely old compass dial on top of Penpole Point, in Kings Weston,  where the encroaching scrub has recently been cleared by our brilliant conservation volunteers! The dial was already old in 1668, when it was repaired by the Merchant Venturers of  the Port of Bristol

Day 31 was Arches: This is the view looking outside from The Echo, the C18th summerhouse  at Kings Weston. The plinth  once held a beautiful statue which disappeared after WWII.

 And that's it!x

Third week of sketches - almost there!

Well,  I'm still managing to keep up my sketching challenge - and thank you  all for you lovely comments and support, which are very welcome and appreciated.  In the spirit of my journal  I kept it local and meaning full to me,  and it's another mixed bag again this week.

Day 18: Dusk/sunset. This is the lovely old Edwardian lighthouse just down the road! Watercolour

Day 19: A self portrait!  Okay this was scar , no, terrifying,. But I did it! Graphite and coloured pencil.

Day 20: Something made with chocolate. Slurp! Watercolour

 Day 21: Tools! Well, I had to choose these didn't I! Noodlers flex pen/Lexington Grey ink and watercolour.

Day 22: An historic building -  Kings Weston House of course! Noodlers flex pen/Lexington Grey ink, watercolour, and water soluble graphite.

Day 23: A machine - again, I had to try and draw my lovely old Singer! Noodlers flex pen/Lexington Grey ink and watercolour.

Day 24: A barn or shed. This is the lovely C13th century Tithe Barn at Frocester in Gloucestershire, just down the road from my old home. Watercolour.

 

Just one more week to go. I'm determined to keep  sketching daily after the challenge is complete!

And even more sketches....

I'm managing to keep up the challenges - just. Work keeps getting in the way though :)

Dragonfly for 'Bugs' Sketch a day Challenge

 
Crumpets and marmalade: Which I sneakily used for both challenges on different days.

 

The last gift  you received:  My beautiful owl pendant made by  my favourite jewelry maker Joanne May

 

A mythological creature -  I chose The Jackalope!

  

A Station; This was a really hard one for me . Luckily I have an elder brother who made me watch lots of Alistair Maclean films when I was a child!

Draw a recipe: I did - but too quickly, and left out the flour and butter! :) Oops. It is a great recipe though, really easy!

I lumped together Black and White/Found objects on a nature walk. We have high winds and torrential storms at the moments,  so this was a very quick scribble of one of our local badgers!

  

Some of these worked better than others, but I decided to post them whatever I feel about them. The important thing is to keep drawing and try new things. Before I started I would have kept to just doing things in the same way.  It really helps having interaction with others and I find this has kept me going.  Previously, any art work I did was a very isolated affair, because of my lack of confidence,  but I've come to realise over the last year or so the importance of sharing and communicating about the process. 

 Alongside the challenges I'm doing Liz Steel's on-line Sketching Now Foundations class. Liz is a highly respected and talented Urban Sketcher. I'm enjoying taking part very much, and finding the content and  teaching excellent. I'll  tell you  more about the class soon. Today though,  the sun is shining at last - and I want to get out and do my homework :)!