And may all your dreams come true...

If you wish for something hard enough it may just well come true...  My daughter has been gifted this beautiful horse, an ex-racehorse formally named Burn Park but affectionately called Treacle. Mind you she has worked extremely hard to deserve it, I think she may just be the happiest teenager I know :)

Sophie's birthday

Well, I can hardly believe it Sophie is 15 today, where did that time go...  Her passion is riding and anything to do with horses, so we were delighted that she was able to ride a borrowed pony (Dillon) to take part in a cross country event today.  It's while since she has ridden him, and has recently been riding much larger horses, but he is a sturdy little fellow, and a good show pony, so they did quite well, with just one refusal.

I drew a picture of him for her birthday card

Study of Eyes

I am taking Monica Zúñiga's online class "Drawing faces with pencil". She starts with the most important feature of the face - the eye, and has many detailed videos helping us to understand and interpret the features of the eye. If you want to learn to draw faces I highly recommend this workshop.

A blissful weekend in Cornwall

Way back in March I had a wonderful girlie weekend in Cornwall. A good friend owns a holiday home on the North Cornish coast and invited 8 of us down for a weekend of fun, feasts, walking, pampering, laughter, dancing, oh yes and did I say eating... For March in the UK, the weather was blissful - lovely and sunny with blue skies and very little wind, so we were able to enjoy the wonderful scenery.

As always, click on the images to view larger.

Here is the house and it's setting...

Some photos from in and around the house, and rocks from the beach...

On Saturday, we went for a long walk along the coastal path
I found some wonderful textures along the way...
and found the first daffodil, just coming into bloom
We ate wonderfully, so of course, I had to record that in my journal too...

The journal is not finished yet, I'm still awaiting some photos that others have promised to send, and I will add some more writing. When it is complete and bound I will do a video flip through.

This is the journal page I did when 10 of us stayed there last January.

All the pages were painted with acrylics on Fabriano Artistico watercolour paper. Sorry about the quality of the photos, I am having scanner problems at the moment...

The house is available for rental, so if you want a truly wonderful place to stay in Cornwall that sleeps up to 14 people check out their website, but be warned it books up quickly.

A fishy tale...

For a friends birthday I created this fun picture for the children's room of her holiday home in Cornwall.

The background was created with watercolour and plastic wrap


Detail of the fish - created with Aluminium sheet and alcohol inks

More Pan Pastel Journal backgrounds

I LOVE using PanPastels for my journal backgrounds - sometimes it is great not to have to wait for paint to dry. I especially love the soft subtle blending that can be achieved, and the wonderful tactile feel of the pages. I have been using them in my gratitude journal, and thought I would share some pre-prepared background pages -


The page bottom left (above) was created by applying Phthalo Blue and Hansa Yellow Shade and blending them where they meet. The flowers were created by stamping with Versamark, and then dusting very lightly over the stamping with Chromium Oxide Green for the stems/leaves and Red Iron Oxide shade for the flowers.

The page top right was created by blending Yellow Ochre and Permanent Red and then erasing the swirls with a pencil eraser (Pan Pastels erase very easily). The page bottom right was created by laying down a base coat of Yellow Ochre, and then dusting Red Iron Oxide shade over a Tim Holtz mask.

For most pages, simply rubbing well with a paper towel after applying the Pastel is enough to 'fix' the pages, however when applying over a mask or through a stencil, it may be necessary to use a fixative spray, although I haven't done that yet with this page and it is holding up pretty well.

I also find that PanPastel can be easily used on smooth paper - usually soft pastel requires a paper with some 'tooth', but it is easy to get smooth 'washes' of colour on very smooth paper with this product as it is so low in dust and has an almost creamy consistency.

A few more pages from my Kelly Kilmer class

This spread did not follow any of Kelly's prompts, but was inspired by the image of the dancer - I have always had a passion for Flamenco dancing. I tried a few classes many years ago, it is surprisingly difficult to co-ordinate the movements of the arms and feet, as they are frequently moving counter to each other...

This spread was in response to a prompt that Kelly posted - Perfume or no perfume?

These pages were inspired by the images rather than a prompt

First pages for my Kelly Kilmer class

I have signed up for Kelly Kilmer's "A life Made By Hand Class". I have been lurking rather a long while since signing up, looking at the many wonderful pages that are being posted. Collage is a new medium for me, so I have been rather hesitant in starting, but the group is wonderfully supportive, so yesterday I took the plunge and posted my first pages.



The second page (on the right) is not really a collage, but as I wanted the text to be the main feature of this page, I felt the image spoke for itself and needed no further intervention from me.

Calendar-Feb10

I did well with my January calendar for Kate Crane's Monthly Art Calendar Challenge , only a few blank squares.

Here are my pages prepped and ready for February. The squares were masked off then I buffed on Permanent Red PanPastel with Phthalo blue around the edges. I just love PanPastels for journal pages they give the page such a lovely smooth tactile surface. I then stamped around the edges with a flourish and a heart stamp.

Gratitude Journal 19th Jan

Here is another spread from my Gratitude journal, again with a PanPastel background, this was using the colours Yellow Ochre and Red Iron Oxide Shade blended together, the pattern was drawn with an eraser.

Gratitude Journal

I am a great fan of Christine Kane's blog have been reading about about Gratitude Journals and felt that this was really the time for me to start one.

The idea is to take a small notebook and write out 3-5 things that you are grateful for every day. I thought I would add an artistic spin to this and decorate my pages first. I have used very simple and quick techniques, and will post a few here as I go along...



I chose a Moleskine pocket sketchbook for my journal as it is an ideal size. I wanted to keep the backgrounds quick and simple, so I am not deterred by having a page ready. This page has been created with a background of blended PanPastel and a border drawn with a Zig calligraphy pen.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to you all... It's about time I added something to this sadly neglected blog! I have decided to join Kate Crane's monthly calendar challenge, it was something I half-heartedly attempted last year, but didn't manage to finish. So I hope the support of a challenge will keep me going this time.



I decided on icy colours for January - to match the current weather - and a motive of clocks to represent the preciousness of time. The background was created by spraying a mist of aqua Creative Colourspray over Tim Holtz timeworks masks. I then masked off the calendar squares and buffed blue PanPastel over the page before shading each box with blue metallic coloured pencil. The lettering was done by hand.

And what exciting news for the first entry of 2010 - the arrival of our 2nd granddaughter safe and sound at 10am! Mother and baby both doing well.

Journaling buddies...

There are many things I love about Journaling, but one the most unexpected pleasures has been the wonderful online communities that I have connected with.

One journal keeper I connected with was Liz (Flickr name Borromini Bear) who generously contributed some of her work to my Travel Journal booklet.

A few weeks ago I was looking through her Flickr pages, and spotted a drawing of Vanburgh, the architect of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. She mentioned in her post that she was planning to visit the UK from Australia. I commented on her photo, asking if she was planning to visit Bath. Well, it transpired that she was indeed passing nearby, and had decided to stop off for tea at the world famous Bridge Tea Rooms in Bradford-on-Avon in the morning en-route to Wales. As I do the school run to Bradford-on-Avon every morning this turned out to be perfect.

So, this morning I had the pleasure to meet up with Liz, and Borromini Bear himself, we sketched in the tea rooms and swapped journaling experiences. Here is Liz in action (with Borromini in the foreground) -



So, if you have been hesitating to start that journal, JUST DO IT, you never know what may happen.

To see some of Liz's wonderful journal pages, and read a little about her journaling experience take a look at this wonderful book she had printed

Alphabet Frieze

Here is another of the projects that kept me busy over the summer. It is a gift for my granddaughter Amelia. The pictures are in strips that can be joined up as a wall frieze. Katie, her mum has also scanned them and is laminating them individually so they can be used as teaching cards.





They are painted with acrylic craft paints on watercolour paper

Now much art around here lately...

Well, I seem to have been engrossed in IT matters lately, so not much Art has been done. So I thought I would post one of my favourite videos. I just love the dancing on this, the movements are so fluid. I remember going to flamenco classes at The Dance Centre in London many years ago, it is deceptively complicated. The arm movements seem very straight forward until you combine them with what your feet are meant to be doing...

Anyway, enjoy, and let me know if you like it too.

Pembrokeshire Travel Journal

Had a wonderful week in Pembrokeshire - the first time I have taken a vacation in Wales and it hasn't rained all the time. We only had one really wet day, so were able to take advantage of the wonderful beaches in this part of the world. A couple of good surfing beaches too, so we had lots of fun body boarding.

Still working on my travel journal, but here are a few pages...

These were mainly done with Pitt Artist Pen, Watercolour pencils and a waterbrush, but some were watercolour paint.

Decorated Page Workshop - Lesson 3

I have got very behind on working on my challenges - but have finally posted my lesson 3 for the study of Gwen Diehn's "The Decorated Page" workshop.
The image transfer method can be found here

The girl that silenced the world for 6 minutes

A friend recently reminded me about this YouTube video. I first saw it about a year ago, but it still astounds me every time I see it. It was made in 1992, and sadly, very little has changed since then...

I wonder what she is doing now?

Lot's of reading, not much art...

Well, I seem to have had my nose buried in a book this last week, so two new entries for my reading journal.

The Cellist of Sarajevo - by Steven Galloway

I loved the lyricism of Stephen Galloway's writing, but found his characters hard to warm to, even though they were in the trying circumstances of a city under siege.

My second book this week - A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khalid Hossini - also had war as a theme. I found this book utterly heartbreaking, and totally gripping...

Note: If you haven't read either book, then be warned that the text in my journal page will contain some spoilers...

Birthday Gift

Well, I have been busy these last few weeks making gifts for friends, some I can't yet show as they haven't been handed to the recipient yet, but this one is now in the hands of it's new owner... My friend celebrated her 50th birthday this week and I made this little book for her, inspired by Martha Lever. I have always loved collecting quotes, so I picked some of my favourites to share.

The images were painted in watercolour on watercolour paper, some have the addition of PanPastel in the background, and a little stencilling added, others also have some rubber stamping. I then made a little booklet out of dark green paper, and stitched it together, then pasted the watercolour paper on each page. Finally I made two covers using fine brass mesh, which were attached with thread sewn through the eyelets and attached to the sewn binding of the book, and then added some fibres as a finishing touch.