Hibernation

Hibernation

 
 As October grows older I grow more aware of the onset of winter. As most of my close friends know I dislike the cold immensely, I think May is my favourite month as I can look forward to the summer ahead, bringing warmth and light. As October progresses and small mammals get ready for hibernation I find myself feeling rather envious of them, wishing I to could curl up in a bed of leaves, waking in spring....

Hieronymus Bosch (detail)

The figure in my painting reminds me of of the elongated forms in medieval painting such as Bosch, perhaps she has been asleep a long time.....

The layers were built up as collage, I then painted in elements and altered images to create a overall tone. As you can see I originally incorporated a tree, but I didn't like it so removed it.

Below are details of the layers of paper and paint. I added lots of gold glazes which reflect the light and make it difficult to photograph well. I'll try and improve the photographs when I have some time :)

Wake me up in spring :)

The electronic postman

Fashionista sketching.

My daughter asked if I could do a few sketches of her for her fashion blog Fashion how I came to live a penniless existence She is a second year fashion management student. Each week she is styling various outfits and writing about them. She loves a fashion blog called Fifi lapin which has little rabbits drawn dressed in high fashion....I suggested I could draw our rather dumpy pet cat in various outfits but this didn't impress her much so I decided to just do quick watercolour sketches of her in instead. I am not by any stretch of the imagination a fashion illustrator and once I received her emailed photographs to transfer into sketches began to feel a little panic stricken on how to approach the whole thing. Then yesterday I found a lovely little book in a charity shop entitled"Pictures in the post ,the illustrated letters of Sir Henry Thornhill to his grandchildren".

In 1914 Sir Henry Thornhill a soldier in the British Raj started sending pictures to his grandson Teddy. They started off quite simply drawn, but soon they became embellished with birds and all types of animals.

I love the idea of a simple sketch that means so much being sent on the back of a small postcard.... In these days of texting and email, postcards are a rare thing! So I made a postcard, photographed it and sent it along with some sketches. I think I will develop the idea some more and make the postcard the main attraction, after all everyone loves recieving a postcard!! even an electronic one.

The electronic postman

 

Wedding Fever

The arrival of October brought wedding fever to my household leaving little time for painting or drawing..Firstly a big thank you to Hannah Sycamore who I commissioned to make this beautiful card. I met Hannah a few weeks ago, she makes beautiful special occasion cards as well as framed canvas mixed media creations, anyway both I and bride and groom were delighted with it.

   I agreed to do all the flowers for the wedding and after a bit of deliberation went for an autumnal theme, orange, deep red, golds and browns. Soon my hall began to fill up and resemble covent garden flower market!!

The table decorations were made from hollowed out pumpkins and ornamental squash, which have beautiful amber gold colours. The principle flowers for the bouquet's were Carthamus or safflower, a gorgeous little tufty orange thistle, Cosmos ( chocolate flowers) these beautiful little flowers are the colour of dark chocolate and even smell chocolatey!! Tanacetum, which is a  variety of wild tansy, Hypericum, anenome and Naomi deep red roses.

I incorporated pheasant feathers and leaves and berries to finish the autumnal theme.