folksy cards

I've added a few hand printed cards to my Folksy shop today if you fancy having a look...

There's been a flurry of printing going on here as this weekend is Bristol Harbour Festival and Nails Gallery have kindly said that they will take along some of my goodies as there will be an Art Market there on Saturday and Sunday at Welsh Back.  Lets hope it will be glorious sunshine, I think we'll be lucky...

dalek bunting

Middle sized boys with birthdays don't really like frilly, flowery bunting so this years solution to 'how to turn the lounge into a birthday grotto' was DALEK BUNTING.  Seemed to go down well and we did manage to sneek the odd pink Dalek in too....

picture swaps...

One of the great things about doing art fairs and craft fairs and open house trails and all the other lovely events where artists and makers get together is that sometimes you manage to pull off a fantastic swap.

Over the years I have swopped all kinds of things and I find that the items somehow take on a greater worth than if I had just bought them - two people who both enjoy/value/admire each others work manage to get together and have a sideways conversation (or sometimes a direct ask, but then how awkward is it to say 'No'?  That looks like I don't like your work or think mine is worth lots more or some other difficult scenario) and that leads to decisions about which pieces of work could be equivalent in terms of a swap and just sometimes it all works out really well.

This is my latest swap, with Caroline Watson, who is a painter.  How many tea towels could I give her for a painting?

Luckily for me she has also done a small series of lino prints, so when chatting away at a local arts trail we somehow ended up in full swop mode.

...and how happy we both are with the result.  I hardly ever buy other lino printers work, although there are so many I really, really admire and I would love an example of their work of my own and it is a medium I am so drawn to at every art show...and now I have these fabulous creatures living with me here!

Caroline chose an unframed print of my "Crowds get bigger towards the back" and  seemed equally pleased.

Hurray for picture swaps.  Do have a look at Caroline's paintings too...

chicks...

A few weeks ago the school hatched out 9 chicks in the classroom which had the children mesmerised - once one was found running around in the school hall it was time for them to move on and Nigel, Bell and Fluffy have been living in our back garden ever since.  They've eaten the lettuces, radish leaves, heather plant and lots of strawberry leaves, they spend their whole day peering into the quail house (and probably laughing as they free range it) and they do a poo every 10 paces (usually on the sand-pit lid).

The chicks have also now entered their teenage years...
They don't look quite as sweet with their stubby feathers mingled with chick fluff, not yet sleek grown up hens...

Just one egg would make up for all their teenage chaos, but they know we love them anyway!

allotment museum

The children have a plan to turn our house into "half house, half museum".  I think we will achieve this with no problem as the whole place is filled with small collections, each vital and important to the owner and we have an ever expanding list of 'interests and hobbies' between us (buttons, crazy bones, real bones, dead insects, pets, pieces of rock which look a bit like toffee...).

We all work hard at the 'Allotment Museum' though... as official allotment weeder I often find the piece of treasure, which is then taken and washed in the trough by the self-designated curator, taken home and put into the right section and then labeled by the official sign-writer...

Today things have taken a turn though - we found four pieces of treasure for our museum collection in only one hour and signs have been made for the front and back doors of the house...

I have a slight fear that I might be charged an admission fee when I get back tomorrow evening...

printing and packaging

This weeks task is printing cards - I love doing this, a satisfying line of cards drying on every window sill makes it look like a very productive day.  Lots of different images for me to look at, so no chance of getting bored and finding all kinds of old lino blocks in my drawer and thinking 'oh yes! this will make a great card, why have I never used this design before??'

Then I have to put them into little packets ready to go to the shops/galleries who stock them...I hate doing this - hopefully one day I'll have my own packaging department who will take on the task for me...

pets...

I'm enjoying doing a whole series of pictures of really not very cute pets, mostly just sketches but there is surely a place in the world for pictures of revolting dogs, cats up to mischief and problem hamsters.

The reality of keeping animals in my experience is that they are sweet and fluffy for a couple of weeks and then start working on a variety of ways of making themselves slightly repulsive (usually involving pooing somewhere very unsuitable or developing a curious medical problem which involves endless nighttime tending - rather like small children really).

I've already done a print called 'Malodorous Animals', focusing on the smellier species on the planet, which makes me laugh quietly to myself, but I suspect will never be a big seller - now I'm moving onto the pets and it is keeping me happily amused this week when I really should be getting ready for the glorious summer that is now finally within touching distance...

plotting...

Lovely morning spent digging things up in the searing heat, listening to grasshoppers chirping and ladybirds bustling about.  Then had a sudden huge need for ice-lollies, so had to leave...

I've spent the rest of today mucking out my studio ( a regular task for all artists surely? ).  This was a little more urgent today as a cat managed to leap through the impossibly high window, knock over the weedy plant specimen on my desk which dominoed into the binoculars, fish mobile, toy baby changing kit, japanese doll and clean pile of washing that had found a home on my chair (where HAD all these things come from???)...everything covered with soil, cat hairs and a few claw marks where the sneaky feline had obviously been scrabbling amongst the chaos...

Good job I've been working on the downstairs table recently because the upstairs one was in such a mess - therefore no real work involved in cat crisis - phew!

Will be getting my own back however, as soon as the culprit is identified from the large amount of evidence left behind...