BALTIC CRUISE PART 2

On Friday of the first week of our cruise we arrived at Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, a wonderful mediaeval city built on a hill and enclosed by walls.  We went ashore and had a look around on our own as it was only 15 minutes by foot from where the ship was moored. It was a fascinating place with narrow streets and a lovely central square where the craft market was in full swing.

 

We climbed gradually to the top for the fantastic views, stopping along the way to look in souvenir shops and some of the galleries selling textile art in particular. We finally got to the Alexander Nevsky cathedral at the highest point and found a quiet bistro for a delicious fish lunch.  Because of the damp weather the outside tables were empty and the place seemed closed but we looked inside and found an old curved roof and rough wooden tables and just a few people eating so we stayed and avoided the crowds down in the square! 

 

This map gives you an idea of the fortified design of the city and our route as we strolled about.

 

 

I couldn't resist spending some money here and when I met Natali on her stand at the market selling her beautiful scarves I just had to go for it!  She sells under the name of iTALA and you can find her on Facebook if you want to see more of her products.

 

Soon it was time to leave Tallinn and head for St Petersburg to spend the weekend. This map shows you where we were able to go with our guided tours.  In Russia it's essential to have a visa to visit the country and for us it was easier to take advantage of the group visa organised by the travel company.  We were warned to keep up with the group and not to get lost as it would cause a lot of difficulties finding our way back in a country where few people speak our language.

 

 

I took hundreds of photos of the Hermitage and Winter Palace and made a few sketches in my journal after we came home.  The pace of the visits didn't allow for any spare time and we were pretty exhausted by the end  of each day!

Every souvenir shop is full, floor to ceiling with Russian dolls of all sizes and prices from 7euros to 700 euros. I decided to buy a fridge magnet instead as I know a doll would just gather dust on a shelf somewhere!

 

On the Saturday evening we were taken to a 'Cultural Faculty' to see a display of traditional music and dancing.  A small troupe gave us a wonderfully vibrant, lively show with lovely costumes, beautiful singing and the men really did do those high leaps and crouching dances.

 

I had never heard of the Cathedral of the Spilled Blood so when I saw a preview on the ship I had to go and see for myself.  Its just as you would imagine, an onion domed church with the most amazing interior covered in mosaics and golden highlights. 

 

All too soon it was time to leave this fascinating city and set sail for Helsinki. 

I amused myself sitting on the stern of the ship watching the wash as we sailed along.

MY 300th BLOG!

Hello friends and followers, I've come to a landmark, my 300th blog post and I've decided to celebrate with a look back over the last 5 years of blogging.  This hydrangea was the first picture I posted on Nature sketchers after I was invited to join by Cathy Johnson who runs the Artist's Journal Workshop group on Facebook.  She had seen my drawings and thought I might be interested in contributing and to qualify for the group I had to have my own blog, hence the birth of Colours in the Breizh.

In January of 2012 I started to keep a nature journal to record the happenings in and around my home here in Brittany.  I really enjoyed the discipline of going out every day to find something to draw in my sketchbook and then later I re-visited all the pages again to post on the blog.  I've shown the book to several people here and I hope I've inspired some to start the drawing and observing habit too.

By the end of 2012 I was looking for a new project and discovered the 75 day challenge organised by Brenda Swenson, a watercolour artist and sketcher in America. The aim was to draw for 75 days using only pens, so I sorted out my rather large collection and found I had all sorts from fine liners, through brush pens and markers to biros.  At the end of the challenge I received my 'Artistic License' from Brenda and a nice handwritten card congratulating me on completing.

I found a black sketchbook at a car boot sale locally for 1euro and after covering it with a pretty fabric it became another occasional nature journal.  It's quite a challenge to find the right colours that stand out on black paper but I found it a useful learning experience.  I was using my newly discovered Museum coloured pencils which have a rich pigment that works well on a dark background.

My main love of sketching is to draw when we are on holiday and as we go to so many different places in our camping car I usually fill a sketchbook each time we go away.  I take photographs too but they don't get looked at nearly as much as the sketches which are also a useful way to identify places and dates when we're discussing them later.  In fact this sketch of Chinon chateau is different from the one I drew several years earlier before the extensive renovations were undertaken.

Another challenge I took part in was the 2015 January challenge where a different subject is posted for each day of the month.  It was fascinating to see all the other participants' interpretations of the same subject as we all posted them to a special page on Facebook.

When we go to England to see the family I love to draw my surroundings as well as trying to sketch live portraits. Joanna had moved to a new house in 2014 so I drew the lounge while we all relaxed on a Sunday afternoon.

Just occasionally I copy photos to complement the 'plein air' sketches, especially when there isn't time to draw everything I see!  These sheep at a farmer's festival were such fun to capture as well as the horses and the snail I drew afterwards.  I have a small tin of coloured pencil stubs that I take on our travels so my palette is limited which means I have to be a bit creative with my interpretation, as you can see I've used a lilac for the shadows which I think makes the picture more interesting.

I love to make my own clothes and I'm always on the lookout for interesting fabrics so when I found a stall in the market at Tenerife selling pretty sarongs I couldn't resist. In fact over 4 years I bought several different ones and each year when we returned I went to show the girls on the stall what I had made, needless to say they were delighted.  This is the latest one which I eventually made with 2 sarongs so there was a nice long piece left over to make a scarf.

In January 2012 I took a bookbinding class so I could learn how to make my own sketchbooks and it has changed my life.  Now I'm always looking out for interesting fabric to cover them with and unusual paper to draw on.  When a friend gave me a stash of old maps I made some of them into a couple of sketchbooks with hand-made drawing paper samples stuck to the plain back of the map and a square of gesso on the map side to draw on. The gesso was a bit hard on my drawing pens but I had a lot of fun trying out the different papers with different media.  Another trial and error experience!

I have a friend, Rose Jones, who is a brilliant photographer who has given me permission to use her photos as inspiration,  This one is done in pen only using triplus pens in different colours.  It's quite exciting to try out new products recommended by friends and most of them work very well for me, although there are a few lying untouched that I keep trying but then abandon again!

My family are my greatest love and drawing their portraits gives me a lot of pleasure.  I have a revolving gallery in our hallway where I frame the latest drawings as they are completed.  This one of Sarah with her cat Odin in graphite is a favourite.  I have a folder with all the portraits in and it's fascinating to see my progress over the last 15 or more years.

In the last year or so I've started to move in a different direction with my art thanks to my friend Luba who was the director of the Belarus fashion company. She gave me bagfulls of  samples which have inspired me to start using them as stitched collages using my sewing machine.  Each time she comes back from Minsk she brings another batch of amazing silks and linens, wools and jerseys in fabulous colours and textures that I can't resist playing with and turning into interpretations of my photos taken on our travels, like this one of Roussillon.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed our trip down memory lane, maybe if you have any friends interested in seeing what I do you could pass on my name, I would love to increase my readership.

BUSY PAINTING......DOORS

 

We have been very busy here for the last three weeks painting our internal doors downstairs.  We've lived in the house now for thirteen and a half years and this is the continuation of long held dreams to complete the decoration of a house bought unfinished all those years ago. There is only the entry hall and the stairwell to plaster and paint now which we have plans for later this year.

 

There are 7 doors to various rooms like the storerooms, bedroom and loo including 2 glazed ones to the lounge.  They all had to be taken down to be sanded by Bob outdoors as we didn't want the house filled with dust, then handed to me for painting.  We decided to work with them flat on trestles so that there was no risk of getting paint on the hinges and catches which had been removed.

 

Fortunately the glazing bars were removable so that I could paint them without having to mask off the glass but it still was quite a job doing all the criss crosses.  Each door was given a layer of undercoat and then a gloss topcoat so it wasn't a quick job!

 

 

 

The entire downstairs became a workshop with everything moved to make room and blankets on the bedroom carpet to protect it as I painted in there too.  There were also three frames to be painted which Bob took on when he had finished his preparations.  He changed all the handles when he re-hung the doors as the old ones were well past their best.

 

 

Here is one of the lounge doors finished, doesn't it look smart!  We're very pleased with our efforts but pretty tired after such intensive work in hot summer weather!

 

My friend Luba has her Canadian granddaughters to stay every summer and I love to have them here for an afternoon of crafting, usually when it's raining as they would be on the beach otherwise.  They came three times this year and I had some varied activities planned.  The first time we made bound books which had to be finished off the next time they came.  Esther was very keen to make more lavender wands as she had learned the process last year.

 

Renata really hates the smell of lavender but loves to knit and crochet so we soon found something for her to make.  The last time we made fabric collage pictures but I forgot to photograph theirs before they went home.

 

We had a lot of fun rummaging through my fabric stash, most of which came from Luba's collection of design samples from when she ran a dress company in Belarus.  Then deciding what image to copy using old magazine photos and books.  Renata made a lovely cactus picture and Esther did a butterfly on a mixed sky background.  Here is my effort, copied from a handpainted birthday card from my sister Juliet.  It's not as easy as it looks, the glue sticks everything to your fingers before you can get it to the paper!

 

Every year when Esther and Renata come to stay with their Russian granny and French granddad I make a gift for them and this year I decided to make cosmetics bags using some of my fabric offcuts and trimmings. Inside I enclosed a pretty glass heart I bought for each of them when we were in Tenerife.

 

Luba was jealous so I had to make her one too, especially as she found another pile of gorgeous fabrics for me to add to my collection!

 

And here's another project in the making, I read a recent blog about this book and sent off for it straight away as I've got stacks of maps to play with in the cupboard.  I had a lot of fun making this basket from a sheet map cut into strips and there are lots of other ideas for using different sorts of maps. livingtowork-workingtolive.blogspot is where I found it as well as another book about Textile Nature which is on top of the pile now for inspiration. 

I've been drawing lilies in my sketchbook for the last couple of weeks while they are blooming in pots on the terrace so watch out for my next blog coming soon full of drawings of these fragrant flowers.

A LITTLE TRIP TO SOUTH BRITTANY

 

We're just back from short trip to La Turballe in south Brittany which is a small fishing town near La Baule, a large commercialised holiday resort.  This first sketch was drawn last Saturday as we relaxed after a tasty lunch at Piriac-sur-mer, half an hour's cycle ride along the coast. 

 

The camp site was right next to the sea and it was a pleasure to hear the waves lapping on the beach when I woke up during the night.  I stood in the doorway of our car to draw this so you can see how close we were.  The hedges had been sculpted to represent waves which really enhanced the view.

 

The gate to the beach was only a few yards from our pitch so I took my art bag and a deckchair one afternoon to capture the view along the coast. This is drawn in Museum watercolour pencils and then washed with water on one of the gessoed pages in my new map sketchbook.  I like the effect and the water worked very well on the surface.

 

My next 2 pages are drawn on the hand made paper samples stuck to the maps and this first one is a very rough  gelatine sized watercolour paper so the pen I was using washed out beautifully to give the light and shade effect I was after.

 

The second was a completely different tinted pastel paper, very absorbant so the same ink pen as before gave quite a different result when it sunk straight into and then spread out on the paper.  It hardly moved at all when I washed the water on as it was already completely absorbed.

 

On the Tuesday we cycled along the coast and then through the salt pans to Guerande, a pretty walled town famous for it's sea salt.  I drew this on a rather dark rough watercolour paper while we sipped a beer after our ride.

 

We ate a delicious crepe lunch and then sat in the shade outside the walls to rest before cycling back.  The swifts that nested in the cracks in the walls were swooping and diving over the water to gather food and then disappear into small holes in the wall to feed their chicks.

 

Later in the afternoon I realised the sea was a bit rougher than usual and thought I might try to capture it in watercolours so I took my bag and chair and settled on a rock near the water's edge.  How lucky this fisherman turned up to add a bit of interest to my picture! The paper is called Turner blue, a copy of the original used by the famous painter so I had to use a white marker pen to paint in the splashes of the waves. 

 

The tide was coming in quite fast so I had to move up the beach above the tide line for the next sketch looking towards the fishing port of La Turballe.  This time I used a water soluble pen, a brush pen and the watercolour pencils.

 

And finally I can never resist gathering wild flowers when we're out cycling and these came from the side of the salt marshes.

I hope you've enjoyed following along on our little trip and I hope to be back again soon with more sketches from somewhere else, it'll be a surprise for you as much as me as our plans are a bit uncertain at the moment.

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!