we went to the zoo...

we went to the zoo today, which is quite a regular trip, especially on wet weekends...

today we saw some extra exciting things that we had never seen before...

huge snakes squeezing white rats (and then eating them)...'uuuurgh' said the watching crowd...

lion cubs chewing something with a lot of ribs...

but best of all - monkeys pooing on an armadillo.  Yep, monkeys pooing on an armadillo and no camera on hand to record the happy event.  Mr Armadillo seemed completely unconcerned!

new tea towel

....at last it's time to show everyone my new teatowel - hurray...

...this one is very specific to Bristol, so don't worry if you've not been here!  Locals will recognise the cranes and the tug 'John King' which are a great local landmark down on the dockside.  We've got a new museum opening down there in mid-June and I thought this would be a good celebration of all things 'dockside' while we are all in the mood.

(I should have waited for a better day to take a photo, but I couldn't - it's been extra windy here for days now and that really does not lend itself to outdoor tea towel photography - I was too impatient for a calm, sunny day and will take some better ones soon)

cats

when I was a student I would spend a lot of time reading dictionaries and drawing cats - it's always good to combine your interests don't you think...

Domestic Sluttery

I noticed today that the lovely people at Domestic Sluttery .....

...have run a little feature on my tea towel and given my Folksy shop a plug. You can count me suitably chuffed - it's a really fun blog, and it's great they found me as I've only been Folksying for a little bit... but I'm also chuffed that they thought one of my teatowels was comparable in cuteness to this video!

tiny pictures

I'm submitting some pictures for a show of small works, so have had a couple of my tiniest pictures framed - I think anything could look good in a small chunky frame, there's something really pleasing about them, so lets hope the selectors do too - although everything else submitted will be in small frames too!

art trail fun & pink drinks...

I  had such a lovely time Art Trailing, catching up with people, seeing friends new work and visiting some fantastic venues with my children (although by the end of my third visit to the 'Wonky House' I felt I had 'done' it...)

Photos will have to wait for another day though because most excitingly of all, my elder flower cordial IS pink...

...what could be more pleasing??  I can't think of much...

Another favourite of ours is to freeze Borage flowers inside ice cubes, the sweetest ice cube you can imagine, and when these are in season this year they will be the perfect addition to the pink Elder flower cordial to create the girliest summer drink possible - contented sigh -

The Bed Workshop

...full of beautiful furniture...

...and a fantastic building to show work in...three floors of furniture and art...

...still in progress ready for the weekend, labels to make, cards to wrap, constant rearranging (and a bit more framing, but there is loads of time yet) and most importantly the bunting must go up across the street!

This show is part of our local Arts Trail but The Bed Workshop is always here.

Have a fantastic weekend, whatever you are doing.

will it be pink?

Today is beautiful and sunny ( I think we are allowed to be pleased because it did rain a bit yesterday...) and the perfect day for harvesting elderflowers.

We are really lucky because we only have to walk as far as the back garden to harvest ours and it is a beautiful black elder, so the flowers are pink - and there are hundreds this year, maybe thousands...the air is filled with the smell and buzzing creatures are coming from all around.

The first year we lived here I was uncertain as to whether the black elder was edible, but having made several batches of Elderberry Tonic for the winters and berry crumbles with a few elderberries thrown in I can safely say that we have all survived and the quails have thrived on elderberries each Autumn, so it must be.

This year is the first Elderflower Cordial year for this bush and I am really, really hoping that it will be bright, bright pink, like the flowers...24 hours of steeping has just begun, the kitchen smells fantastic...we will find out tomorrow!

a world of contrasts

I love the contrasts that life gives us...

Last weekend was the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol and I was lucky enough to have my work there with Grant Bradley Gallery...

Here's a photo from the private view, wine flowing, crowds wandering and lots of arty chat...what a lovely way to spend an evening....

...and a rare non-inkstained photo of the artist, taken by Lou my partner in crime for an evening of window shopping for the best and worst that we could find - I never managed to get the best down to even a short list, thank goodness for invisible money..

...and then home for a week of poorly, spotty children and printing and packaging ready for the Southbank Arts Trail - will the glamour never end?

give it a try...

I always use the same pencil in my sketchbook and think everything I do should turn into a lino print at some point, but really, the only way to do something new is to give it a try - doesn't everything look great in charcoal and shouldn't we all use it more often?

the Art Trail is coming

I'm really excited - the Southbank Art Trail is coming up at the weekend and I love it!  Some years I have opened our house (what a lot of tidying that makes me do...) and some years I've had a stall at the Southville Centre where they have music and a cafe all weekend...

This year I'm going to have my work at The Bed Workshop on Braunton Road with some other printmakers.

It is a really fantastic gallery space in an old brick pickle factory, which is now full of beautiful beds and French furniture - what more could I want?  Pictures will be here by the end of the week as I don't really expect you all to pop over.

Needless to say, the production line is in full swing and the packaging department had better get ready for a busy week.

there is always room...

I have an allotment - that is where I should grow food.  I have a teeny tiny back garden at the back of a terraced house and two energetic children -  that is where they should play when we are at home...

Today, I 'accidently' planted 10 tomato plants (with another 10 waiting for hanging basket space).  I'm sure they won't take up much space when they are fully grown....

...and I couldn't help but put out another tub of salad leaf seeds to replace these when they go over soon...

...and I don't think I ever did get round to pruning the giant black elder bush that the previous owners planted in a much too small garden (maybe because I want the flowers and then berries for a bit of cordial?) - so along with currants, plums, cherries, strawberries, kiwi fruit and quails there is not much ground left for playing on - lets hope they've had a busy day at school - gulp.

escaping...

Having grown up in the Cotswold hills surrounded by green and small rustling creatures, inner city Bristol just sometimes seems to be lacking something...

 I've done quite a few prints on an 'escape' theme, there must be something deep going on!!

Thanks goodness for allotments and nearby countryside and children who are more than happy covered in mud.

This weekend is the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol and The Grant Bradley Gallery are taking some of my work along, which is very kind of them!  I get to enjoy the private view and float about whilst they do all the hard work - lets hope it's busy for them.

amazing things

often the smallest things, or the tiniest details are the most amazing and easily overlooked...here are some of the things that caused the most excitement here this weekend...

an unlucky dragonfly...

 now preserved in our newly established 'dead insect museum'...

it was found here, at Bristol University Botanic Gardens, well worth a visit if you are in the area...

a teeny, tiny quails egg ( and they are fairly small to begin with) - shall we fry/poach or boil it????

and 'Cabbagy' the butterfly has at last emerged in our bathroom, having been spotted ooching down the window late last summer, making his/her tiny cocoon just above the toothbrushes and then sitting out the winter...

...of course, I haven't done any cleaning for the past six months in order to preserve the perfect habitat and when released Cabbagy flew right over the top of our house and off in exactly the right  direction for our allotment...



I didn't take all of these photos - I was not present when the floating dragonfly was discovered...some were taken by Sam who is currently advertising me, what a happy coincidence!

birds, birds, birds

Despite my best efforts I do always end up doing more prints of birds than anything else...how does it happen?

obviously the above are all regular visitors to my tiny urban back garden...

In other bird news, yesterday was bath day for the quails (sand bath that is...) and I cannot show with photos just how much they love it - ruffling and fluffling away, they all dive in and end up with legs and wings in all directions, looking scruffier than ever - but when they emerge, what beautiful sleek ladies they have become!!

 And they all know it too!

no making...

We have hardly done any making at home recently because there have been no rainy days ...I'm missing it as I love a good joint project - you never know what you will end up with and everyone has really different ideas about what we should do.


Here are a couple of our old favourites, but i think it's time for something new soon...

pictures ready for shows

'crow'

'puffin race'

'bristol docks'

'crowds get bigger towards the back'

the house is starting to resemble a warehouse, 

this is just the tip of the iceberg, 

so all playing/hobbies/housework are off as noone can touch anything without a sharp intake of breath from me as I try to remain cool about it all as I have created this situation and the chaos will continue until the end of the month.

bumper berries

After all these holidays those of us with allotments should be way ahead this year - gulp.

At the moment I'm dreaming of thistle roots, having just turfed all my baby peas out of their spiky nursery in order to dig it over for the THIRD time this year...at this rate I'll have perfect soil by September, with not a crop to show.  Move over thistles and bindweed, the potatoes are coming.  My new tactic is to plant more potatoes than we will eat in our lifetimes in the spiky end of the allotment and then ignore it....

The lovely end of the allotment is doing well (if you don't count zero precipitation thus stopping all germination) and there are an exciting number of berries on their way this year - hurrah.

cowparsley and prints

Too many holiday days and too much dry weather - I've started ignoring them all and have been printing away as May is a month of deadlines (although I could have done all the work in January if I'd been clever...).

The hedgerows have come to me though and several extravagant bunches of cowparsley have been picked.  I love it, it seems to have been in flower for most of my childhood, and what would look better in any serious flower arrangement?  Coupled with some heavyweights like roses it would add just the right amount of froth.

It does drop bits in my ink though and has now been removed to a safe distance...

I'm printing for the Affordable Art Fair in Bristol later this month and will show you the pictures that are back from the framers soon.