Tuesday 5 May 2015

Swallows, cuckoos & snow & a lovely ''new home'

I've been trying to get here for over a week now, that 'life' thing just gets in the way sometimes.


I started this daisy collage a while ago & don't seem to have added much to it recently.


the sample at the bottom of the sketchbook page along with doodles & cutouts for some mono printing.


I realize I need to get a shift on as the beautiful honesty ( a pic from a couple of years ago above) & dicentra & even geranium phaeum is out already - it is my intention to capture my garden in stitch as it emerges but not at one stitch a week!



 So I made a delicious gelatine plate - I knew playing with those lovely agar plates at school in Science class would come in useful!

 As you can probably see from thse first 2 pics I must have let the plate get too warm in the room before printing as when I pulled the first print - dicentra leaves - a layer of gelatine came off with it! Over night the thin layer of gelatine dried beautifully (not sure whether it might start degrading even tho it's dry!) but I look forward to flooding the print with some color.


 Peeled off the leave & got such a crisp print!


The plate now looks like a map of the world & as I was in daisy mode I used some card cutouts for more mono printing. Lots of pics, feel free to scroll thru quickly!





 used this as a first anniversary card for the eldest & dil....one year already!! I did add color but posted it off before I took a (nother) pic ;)






paraphernalia above & cards & cloth below


Well, & would you believe this is what I was lucky enough to win in a give away from Janice MacDougall (The Craft Magpie) This is where I can 'move in' to any time I feel like a change


 A beautiful house box & a pretty brooch, too


 beautifully stitched  flowers


A cat & the key to each door


& the smell of roses. I love it Janice, thank you!


Can you guess what these are, what made them? I seem obsessed with them, tried to 'take a print' but couldn't - if you guess you can help me work out how to...please  ;)









 Ages ago I would sit with my coffee on my favorite bench & watch a robin eat last year's Gunnera seeds. Never had my camera while he was posing so I just grabbed this thru the study window. Marveled at how the color of the seeds & the robins breast were an exact match. Sadly, I've had to cut all 5 plants (!) back as the sleet, snow & wind over the last couple of weeks totally dried them out. They'll grow more!


 Very atmospheric weather we've been having, what next?!