Local Wildlife

Yesterday I saw a beautiful dragonfly over my garden pond - it was quite large - about 8cm and very green. I looked in books and on the website of the British Dragonfly and the Yorkshire Dragonfly conservation sites (did you know such things existed ?) and have come to the conclusion it is a female Aeshna Cyanea, otherwise known as the Southern Hawker. I watched it for ages and not having a camera to hand, took many pics with my small tablet, most of which missed the dragonfly entirely -, and the few that didn't were mostly out of focus and rubbishy. You have to make a leap of faith to see my beautiful dragonfly in this pic

If you look carefully on the edge of the pond under the willow bird's head, you will see its wings over the water and its green body curled over the edge of the stone. You'll have to take my word for how lovely it was.
Then, this morning, as I was pounding the mean streets to clock up my daily quota of steps, I saw two peacocks. To be fair, they are not wild ( they belong in Lady Masham's garden just down the road ) and they are frequently grubbing in the gardens and streets and I see them most days. However today I had my phone with me so was able to take pics.

There are usually four white ones - I don't see the blue one so often.
Visitors always think they are a delight but I think they can be mean - and they make a mess !

new in my garden

Well it's almost the end of August and I realise that I have only posted once this month ! Must pull up my socks or , as someone who shall be nameless says, there will be consequences !
Anyway, lacking anything of interest to post, I thought I'd show you my new shed !

As you can see,it has been built behind my other shed so that it tucks in under the eaves.
Here it is painted!

There door to the right is my garden gate which leads out onto a paved area and the drive. I keep my compost bins out here too, to maximise garden space. My DH and his brother built the shed. My clever brother in law also made an end for my pew -

I bought it from the Methodist Church opposite us when they renovated. it was a 'middle' pew , fixed onto a post which had another pew on the other side, so was lacking one end ! He made it from bits and pieces
of softwood that he had in his workshop and I have stained it to get near the colour of the original pitch pine of the pew. All I have to do now is make a cover for the foam pads we have for it - those early Methodists didn't believe in comfort ! it is going to live in our sitooterie.

Another TJ

Haven't done much lately - or been anywhere very interesting. I have though finished my 'other' TJ - that is to say the one that is not Yorkshire. This is the last piece in the first round of the journal and is in my friend Sarah's book.
 She is inordinately attracted to poppies, despite being told by one tutor 'how obvious' when she had chosen to base her work on one. The ceramic poppies in the display at the Tower of London are for sale and I have bought one - it will be posted to me sometime after Remembrance Day, when the installation comes down. I hope to go and see it in situ before then !

I took the photo of the poppy field at Mickley, just outside Masham in June 2006 and printed it onto cotton fabric

A Day Out

A day out in London is a genuinely a whole day when you live in North Yorks ! I left home at 6am to get the 6.25 bus to get the 7.35 train and got home at 11pm. Of the 17 hours that took up, I spent almost 10 hours either sitting on , or waiting for, either a bus, a train or the London Underground ! The seven hours that were left were brill !
During the morning my daughter and I went to Leighton House - an incredible space with Islamic tiles to take your breath away - no photos allowed but the ones in my head are brilliant, and it's half price entry with a Nat Trust card ! On the way back , I saw this lovely sign -

had no time to check it out as we were on our way to lunch ! We had a delicious lunch and the hour and a half we took over it was a lovely respite from the heat and crowds.
After lunch we went to the National Gallery

A feast for the eyes this time and we spent a long time here - the paintings etc to illustrate the different pigments and how they were obtained and used , as well as how they have reacted with time,  were spot on. The exhibition was arranged in a rainbow of rooms with a general room on colour theory to start and a gold and silver room tagged onto the end of the rainbow. I hadn't realised how lacking my knowledge was. We had booked online and had bought half price audio guides which really enhanced the information in the galleries.
When we came out into Trafalgar square, it was thronged with people of every hue too - a cheery kaleidoscope of masses of people enjoying the sun and a whole phalanx of living statues ! I was very taken with this on the fourth plinth !

More to eat then - tea and cake - well one has to keep one's strength up, before the last tube of the day back to Kings Cross. I sat opposite a lovely poem called Small Brown Job - unfortunately the pic I took is rather blurred but I hope to use it in a journal sometime - will have to see if I can enhance it a bit. All in all a really good day plus the trains were on time !

EG Residential

Had a brilliant weekend at Bishop Burton  - three of us from Harrogate all chose the Linda Westerman tutored  '3D images.'  The requirements list was quite sparse and we all found ourselves wishing for (sometimes) obvious things we'd not brought. It did however encourage a culture of helping and sharing and improvising and Linda was more than generous with her stash.
I took some skeleton chinese lanterns that I picked from the garden last winter before they got too manky and decided I would work on them.

As you can see, the one I chose was very well preserved, even down to the shrivelled seed inside. I then sampled a selection of ways I thought might suit the construction. You will be surprised that I started by drawing the pod - somewhat simple not to say naive, but a drawing nevertheless ! I then sampled machine sewn grids on various papers,  free machined scrim etc as well as cake wire supported shapes on paper and dissolvable. Machine gridded tissue paper was the most delicate sample and though I was able to produce a piece that held its shape by painting it with watered down pva, I decided it would be too difficult to join unsupported pieces so made my sections by machining lightweight cake wire petals over the tissue grid. They were coloured with tea and rubbed to produce a lacy effect and then handsewn into shape - a small wooden bead made the 'seed'.

I was really pleased with the effect and the delicate piece that I ended up with.


I then made another pod by machining the cakewire petals onto dissolvable and free machining the grid. This produced a more robust pod with a lacier effect but which wasn't as delicate as either the paper one or the actual lantern.

I finished the project by making a wired book cover to contain a zigzag of my samples.

Everyone had a really worthwhile weekend and we were all of the opinion that we had chosen the 'best' course!

Hurrah for Yorkshire !

Hope everyone watched the incredible footage of le tour - didn't Yorkshire show the world an amazing event ?
The atmosphere in our small town was incredible with people thronging the streets from early on and every one of them was smiling and good humoured. I cannot find words to say what a totally brilliant day we had on Saturday and the places on Sunday were just as amazing (if not quite so pretty !)

On yer bike !

Part of the Caravane - how good is Miffy!

Youth club sculpture - recycled cycle

Cote de Buttertubs - and Black Sheep beer

No pics of the peloton - watched it !

Screen Printing with Dionne Swift

Had a really good day at Rural Arts in Thirsk the other week with Dionne Swift.
We painted with procion dyes directly onto a screen then textured with table salt, rock salt and rice. The screen was left to dry so that the texturing stuff could be rubbed off, then the screen was printed using manutex to push the dye onto the fabric (pfd from Whaleys).
This was my first 'play' using an A4 screen and the object was just to try the technique and see the effects of a second or even a third print.

As you can see, I just painted on colour with no particular theme in mind, but it was useful to gauge the advatages and limitations of the technique.
My 'proper' piece was planned to be a sea/beach background to stitch into ad this was done on an A2 screen.
First print -

2nd print

I didn't bother trying a third as almost all the colour was off my screen. I left an untextured area to distinguish between sky and sea but was unable to keep the colour clean. I was really pleased with both my prints and am looking forward to stitching into them, though I may not keep the whole fabric intact - a bit large for me, especially as most of what I have done for the last year has been A5 !

Le Tour s'arrive !

Well it will be here tomorrow but our small town has been buzzing since early morning when I believe, (several emails from friends) that it was featured on Good Morning, this morning. The local primary school was assembled to paint a giant yellow sheep on a bicycle on the square - hopefully it will be picked up by one of the helicopters that are following the tour and our fame will be spread far and wide as long as it is not washed away by the rain which has been falling steadily for the last couple of hours ! As one of the Breweries says on their Tshirts - the middle of nowhere but the centre of the Universe.
No pic to show - can't get high enough to get it in . We do have, in common with all the towns and villages on the route, a stone marker cairn with a carved white rose on top to commemorate the event. We are awash with yellow bikes and bunting and the beer tents and food stalls are arriving plus the market stalls etc - all we need is a bit of luck with the weather and on with the party !
To mark the event, the local Embroiderers Guild has made a banner ( indeed I did one of the villages myself but think I've already blogged that ) and I do have a pic of that !

Keep off the Grass !

This sign made me laugh - they were planted along the drive up to the church at Helperthorpe and either they work really well, or very few people with dogs ever walk up the path !

Follow the Herring

Had a couple of days in Hull this week to catch the Follow the Herring tour which is taking a play and exhibition round the coast from Musselborough to Margate, following the path of the 'Herring Lassies' who followed the shoals of herring around the coast each season. Each stop on the journey has produced 'herring' to augment the knitting covered fishing coble that travels too and also a community choir who play an integral role in the play. The choir in Hull has been in existence since 2010 but some communities have started a choir from scratch and I have to take my hat off to them - the music is amazing with complex harmonies - no simple ditties here , and must have taken hours of rehearsal . The exhibition was a joy and a revelation about the lives of the lassies and the fisher families - good stuff!
Herring in the font-

and on the pew ends-

the coble-

and inside -

even the boat's cat -

A group of women had worked with a professional knitter to produce a picture of the lassies which hung in the foyer of the theatre - unfortunately I used my tablet for the pic and (being a cheapie) it has no flash so the colour is a bit off !

A thoroughly enjoyable event !

I do like to be beside the seaside

Yesterday, in fabulous weather, I went to the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs - totally lovely. We saw Puffins (but no pufflings - too early), Gannets (a few had chicks - gannetlings ?) plus masses of kittiwakes, razorbills, Guillemots etc - also a peregrine which flew over and temporarily moved hundreds of birds from the cliffs. The cliff tops are managed as wildflower meadows and have a large bird population - meadow pipits and larks etc as well as many small brown birds I couldn't identify. Also, around the carparking area, they are installing amphibian fencing as crested newts are breeding in the adjacent pond. There were several RSPB volunteers with scopes set up so that visitors without specialist equipment (like us) could get good views - I saw my first puffin with sandeels in his mouth - just like the postcards !
The day was rounded off with tea and cake at Burton Agnes plus a look around their courtyard shops where I accidentally acquired three new plants - two low growing thymes to fill a couple of niches plus a very lovely pale violet anemone which I have no need of at all but was so beautiful I couldn't resist it !
Photos not very good - rubbish camera - but her's a flavour -
Elephant rock

Gannets on the Neuk

(Filey Brigg in background)

Day Four (well early on day five)

Finished at last - hard to explain how much effort it takes to move small pieces of stone in anything resembling a controlled manner ! I left early on day four after spending a couple of hour smoothing my bird/seal - dog sitting then to the Cinema to see a live transmission of Der Rosenkavalier from Glyndebourne - lovely stuff even though it lasted from 4.30 till almost 9pm - well those poor folk slumming it actually at Glyndebourne had to have long intervals so they could finish up their picnics and champagne !
Anyway here is my creation sitting on the steps outside my back door - he probably won't stay there but at the moment I like admiring him when I look out of the window !

Stonecarving day three

In fact it is early on day four - I was so tired when I got back last night that I didn't have the energy to write my blog ! Yesterday we carved outside ( under a canvas roof) while the rain sheeted down for most of the day and turned our limestone dust into limestone mud. Progress was made though and visitors to the open studios came to look and speak and sometimes admire - though one lady did think I was carving a baby seal - can't really blame her ! My bird is a fat, almost beakless. short tailed suggestion of a bird and is easily mistaken for a seal, especially when lolling on a sandbag so that I can get under its neck.

Whatever it eventually turns out to be, it will look lovely in my garden I'm sure !

Stonecarving day two

Yesterday I showed you my stonecarving right at the beginning of the day when I had just riughly marked out my block. I meant to take a photo at the end of the day so that you could see my progress but I forgot !
I did though take a photo first thing this morning before I started which amounts to the same thing .

As you can see, it takes a long time to move quite small quantities of stone. We worked in the sunshine today while the studios were prepared for NY Open Studios.Four local artists are showing their work this weekend and are hoping for lots of visitors to come to look. There is a painter/screenprinter, a ceramicist, a mixed media artist and a papercutter all of whom have some brill things to display. ( There will of course be cakes by the dozen - hurrah ). Arty things aside, I have spent several more hours today moving an equally insignificant amount of stone, but I can , if I squint, see my bird emerging from the stone.

 The white bit which looks as if it might be a beak, is in fact a small piece of stone resting on the ground and is nothing to do with my carving ! I haven't yet finalised how I want my beak and tail to be angled - will it be a pigeon or a duck - only the stone will tell ! While we were having lunch, there was a lull in the conversation (probably exhaustion) and a partridge came and made such a noise with his calling that it made us laugh out loud. I think he had seen my emergent bird and was looking for a mate , so depending on my accuracy with the hammer and chisel, it may even turn out to be a partridge !

lazy blogger !

I can't believe it is almost a month since I posted - lazy blogger ! Not that I haven't been busy but generally I have been busy with the mundane -  plus of course, TJ's which I generally don't blog. Today however, I started a four day stone carving course at our local Arts place and thought I'd share the beginnings at least of what I'm doing. I decided that I would choose a more stylized subject so that if  (when!) it fails to live up to the picture in my head, I can pretend it was what I had intended all the time.
I chose for my inspiration a small ceramic I have of a pigeon.

It is about 20cm long and sits comfortably in my hand - I like it a lot and decided I would use its general form - upscaled to emerge from my 40cm x 20cm x 20cm block of Ancaster limestone.

Firstly, I roughly sketched the shape - sides,top, front and back on the block and then started to remove the unwanted stone . It is is not as easy as it sounds even though the limestone is (in terms of stone) quite soft.
Suffice to say, I came home with several small wounds - stone scrapes, hammer blows, blister from holding the hammer and a realisation that I had forgotten to take a photo of how far I had got ! I will take one first thing tomorrow so I can blog the day one progress and remember to take another photo at the end of the day as well .

Days away

I've had several days away over the last ten days or so - first a visit to friends in the Midlands which took in the Uttoxeter Quilt Show - a very jolly affair, then back home to meet up with friends from my 'other' TJ. We met for a journal exchange (plus tea and delicious scones) . This was my journal entry this time -

it was inspired by a tatty photo of my Grandmother which a wizard with PhotoShop turned into a lovely sepia study ( grotty bits all mended) within an oval fuzzy edged frame. I thought the Grandmothers flower garden pattern would be appropriate to go with it, though truth to tell, the only flowers I really remember from her garden apart from forget me nots were Golden Rod (everyone had this!) and a sort of Globe Campanula which I thought was very exotic.
The day after the exchange, DH and I travelled to North Wales for an overnight stop at Bangor. It was a glorious day and we took advantage of the sun to visit Bodnant Garden, an 80 acre NT garden that we had often passed but never visited before. It was stunningly beautiful with a huge collection of Rhododendrons and Azaleas in full bloom and a Dell carpeted with bluebells - lovely !

Next day was Ireland on a family visit. My DH's brother essentially lives in a two acre field ( well, in a house in a two acre field - gardeners they are not ) . The hedge however was brilliant - a swathe of Gorse that lit the whole place up !

I thought I was getting tired of yellow after the daffodils, the dandelions and the rape but this tickled my fancy.
I got home to find my tulips in full bloom and as we are away to Skye tomorrow and they will be over before I get back I thought you should have a look at them !

In my garden

I have been taking photos up my garden and have used an android tablet (just at the moment, I can't lay my hands on my camera!) I have uploaded them onto web albums with google+  but can't find how to move them into Picasa so that I can manipulate them. I was hoping to collage a selection of auriculas but as I am not a competent computer person, I will have to add individual photos which I fear will not have a great deal of impact -ah well !
First up is my version of an auricular theatre - this will be better next year !

Now here are some of my lovely blooms -