LILIES, LILIES, LILIES.

 

In the spring I bought a bag of oriental lily bulbs and planted them in a few pots to put on the patio for the summer.

 

The first ones to open were the pinky red ones which grew very tall and gave a wonderful display for a fortnight till they started to change colour.

 

The white ones were a couple of weeks behind but they did give me a succession of gorgeous blooms to draw in my sketchbooks.

 

As you can see I've used several different media to depict these fragrant flowers.

 

I found out this week that the local Mr Bricolage store stocks the Derwent line painters and took the opportunity to buy a white one which works quite well on this tinted paper.

 

The museum watercolour pencils were good too in this, one of the first drawings I did.

 

As I got used to the shapes and curves of the petals the pictures began to give me an idea for my mother-in-law's 90th birthday card.

 

This final sketch was drawn on one of the end papers in my maps sketchbook no 37 as I had run out of pages!

 

 

This week when the doors were finished I finally found the time to get started on my new picture.  I found a pretty piece of lacy fabric to use as a background and then built up the image using scraps of different colours for the leaves and flower petals.

 

It took three afternoons to machine embroider my lily for the birthday card.  I mounted it on a piece of green card and folded the edges over and then stuck it onto a bright pink folded card ready to be finished with a message on the inside. 

 

 

After a couple of days of looking at the picture on my desk I realised that it needed a little something extra in the bottom left corner so I made a drawing of a Red Admiral I have in my nature stash.  I traced the image onto a piece of stiffened fabric and coloured it with inktense pencils and acrylic paints, then sewed a body in black wool to give three dimensions.  I stuck the butterfly in place using fabric glue and stitched the feelers to complete the picture.  I think it looks pretty realistic, don't you?

Fortunately mum has no access to the internet so hopefully she won't see this till her birthday party in September and if any of my readers know her please don't show it! 

We're off for a couple of weeks camping at the weekend so I'll see you later with hopefully another batch of new drawings from our travels.

 

IT'S SEWING BEE TIME!

 

The Great British sewing bee has started a new series and of course I've been inspired to get out my machine again.  I finally got around to making this top from the sarong I bought in Tenerife.  I made the long black and white dress too but I haven't had a chance to photograph it yet so that will have to wait for another day.

 

 

You might remember this drawing I made in my holiday sketchbook.

 

I have a loyalty card for the local fabric shop and when I received a 10 euro voucher as a birthday bonus I was off in a flash to spend it!  I bought white stretch denim to make some summer trousers and came across this fabulous printed plasticised tablecloth fabric.  I just had to buy a metre for only 6 euros with the idea of making a beach bag and look how brilliantly it turned out!  I'm going to use it when we're away in the camping car to take my towel and toiletries to the showers in the mornings and it will co-ordinate with my bright pink dressing gown too!

 

Here's another piece of irristible fabric that I made into a bag to carry my art materials on holiday in and there was just enough to make a little zippy pouch as well.  Needless to say it's packed and parked on the end of my bunk in the camping car already as we're leaving in the morning.

 

Last week I made a new sketchbook covered in this gorgeous Parisian inspired fabric with a colour matched leather spine.  The pages are made with maps and hand made paper samples like the last one I made.  This time I used Loire valley maps as we were planning a tour of the region over the next few weeks but we've had to change our plans because of the serious flooding there at the moment.

 

The end papers are made of a map with florist's tissue glued to it, just translucent enough to see the map through it.  Then I used another map to cut out the numbers and did the lettering and borders in Derwent line painters as they are opaque.

 

I started working in it on Sunday with a sketch of our lunch eaten in the garden.  We had a lovely time sitting in the sun making our holiday plans and being swooped over by the swallows that live in the barn over the road.

Well that's it from me for a couple of weeks, let's hope for some warm sunshine and lots of interesting things to see and draw. 

A bientot!

MAD ABOUT MUSHROOMS

 

I've had a lot of fun this week working through Luba's mushroom photos.  Here is the first one I chose to draw in my sketchbook, I've used a bit of artistic licence with the colours and the paper just happened to be this gorgeous shade of raspberry at the end of my book!

 

Then I thought why not try to make use of these pictures for a larger painting as I have a framed print in the kitchen that's in need of changing and the frame is in good condition.  I measured up and worked out that I could put 12 drawings measuring 14 x 15 centimetres on one background.

 

I'm really not that comfortable with big paper so the idea of lots of little drawings appeals to me.  I sorted out a stack of different colours and started drawing.  This red spotty one I found while out walking on Wednesday was perfect to get me started and the green picture above I copied from a photo I took last week.

 

Here are Luba's forest ones again, drawn in Derwent line painters and a white gel pen.

 

This strange sombrero shaped one took a long time with all that stippling but I think it was worth the effort, especially as I had already drawn it once in the sketchbook!

 

And finally the finished page in the sketchbook where I decided to add the forest in the background as it was in the photo. 

I hope you've enjoyed the start of my new project and will visit again soon to see part 2!

SPRING TRIP 2015 THE GARDEN PARTY

 

We had a lovely week at Tilford with Mum and here is one of the trees I could see from our veranda.  I've drawn it in the new Derwent line painters in a pointillist style.  It took ages but was great fun to do, especially as I've had a lot of trouble with the pens blobbing before, but this time they behaved perfectly.

 

On Saturday morning we set off to Justine's house near Guildford for her annual garden party in aid of the Woking Hospice.

Here is my table laid out ready with all the books and cards I had made over the last few months.

 

Here I am a couple of hours later counting the money and with very little left to sell on the table.

I donated £70 of my takings to the final total of £400 that was taken during the afternoon.

 

My brother Chris and sister Juliet came to the party as well as lots of other extended family members and friends of Justine and her daughters.

 

Here is Kirsty, my eldest granddaughter, setting out the delicious cakes she and her sisters had been busy baking in the previous couple of days.  Stephanie, the middle granddaughter, took lots more photos but as she's very pre-occupied with her A levels at the moment she hasn't had time yet to download them.

 

I'll finish with another little sketch from our stay at Tilford, a pretty wild flower I have always called 'milkmaid.'

Next stop on the journey, a visit to Joanna, my youngest daughter, at her new home in Whitstable which I'll post in a couple of days.