Doors and windows scavenger hunt!!

'secret garden'

 This Month Artists in Blogland have come up with a new themed Scavenger Hunt and this month it is 'doors and windows' so I thought I would have a look back at my previous work to see what I could find. The idea is to source any work new or old to fit the theme!

This small canvas was finished last winter and is called ' the secret Garden' named after my favourite children's book by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

                                   
                         

I based  the secret garden doorway on this  on this watercolour I painted of an Old Byre door. I love painting and photographing old doors, the two below were in Yorkshire.

 I love the way the Virginia creeper covers the walls around them.

postcard

This is a little postcard I made for a postcard swap earlier in the year.

Thistles in the window (watercolour pencil August 2013)

I love this old doorway, I took it in york when I was visiting earlier in the year, I think it would make a great collage!

linking up to Artists in Blogland scavenger hunt!!!

postcard giveaway and mix it monthly!

landscape and thistles, collaged paper, fabric and machine embroidery

Thistles have been a bit of a recurring theme with me this summer and I have finished some large pieces on canvas incorporating them which I will post over the coming weeks. My sketch book is full of thistle pages and designs. I recently bought a new sewing machine ( My first digital one) and I am learning to love what it can do!!

The thistles carpet the ground throughout August with their bright tufty blooms.

I even brought some inside to paint

.

neocolor crayon and ink

 
For the mix it monthly challenge I decided to use the thistle theme along with an abstracted design using my favourite copper and silver locket. It has a little copper spiral in the centre of a silver plate.

Mix it monthly. Copper, silver and thistles

I did a few designs around the theme..

The design below is done on my new machine. Its a Janome which I have not owned before and I'm still getting used to it and having fun in the process.

I sprayed the finished piece in cosmic shimmer mist.

And finally my last thistle is a little postcard which I thought would make a nice giveaway! I have been making a few cards over the summer using the themes and colours I have been using

postcard giveaway

It has been just over a year since I began my blog so thought I would celebrate and over the next few weeks give away a few of my summer postcards to my readers. Just leave a comment  saying if you would like me to send you the postcard and I'll draw a name at random next week .

Postcard happiness

A lovely surprise today!! My first Artists in Blogland postcard arrived..
It is beautiful, painted by a wonderful Artist called Tina Wittmer, unfortunately I cant find a related blog or email address to thank her for this beautiful card, but if you happen to stop by my blog Tina, thank you so much, I LOVE it :)

Artists in blogland Postcard swap

In the post very soon!

Finished my postcards for the Artists in blogland postcard swap so will be posting them very soon. Its also the theme of the Artists playroom this week. This is my first postcard swap and Ive found it lots of fun, looking forward to the postman arriving soon with some beautiful returned cards.

 Dinner date

My first card is my favourite,

 Let me introduce Mr Murphy,
Mr Murphy is looking for love and so far has been rather unsuccessful but encouraged by Melvin over at butterfly mind decided to sign up for a bit of online dating. Alas despite putting on his finest bow tie he has been stood up! Murphy is a positive chap and looking on the bright side he now anticipating an extra large portion of baked sea bass, after all there are plenty more fish in the sea :)

Close your eyes and dream...

 

 Through the butterfly window... 

 

My other postcards have a dream theme. The Butterfly window had me thinking as I was making it of a programme I used to watch as a child, no idea why! It was called 'Playschool' and half way through the show the presenter would introduce three windows, square,arched and round asking which "we should go through today?"It was just a way of introducing a way into a video clip, but I loved it and always wished for the round window. Although going through windows can be fun, to flutter out the window into the wide open world is even more exciting.

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