Sculpture

On Wednesday afternoon we went to Newport House, Almesley in Herefordshire to see the 'Out of Nature' sculpture exhibition (Out of Nature). The gardens were amazing and the sculpture was interesting.  The picture above was part of a collage of plant materials which formed the logo of The Cartshed created by Kate Raggett.

These pieces in the greenhouse were interesting.  Made from stainless steel and enamelled copper wire by Sue Hiley Harris.

This one was called 'Wednesday's Child' and was a bronze by Helen Sinclair.

There were several of these shapes on the lawns near the lake and some had been lit with fire.  This one was 'The Apple Pickers made of hand cut steel by Aragorn Dick-Read, and I think the one behind is 'Descending Kaos'.

The planting around this was lovely.  It is by Charlotte Mayer, and is a bronze called 'Largo'.

What are friends for

A bit blustery on the Worcester Beacon

We had this lovely lady and her two friends to stay this weekend and we fitted in lots and lots of walking.  This was interspersed with lots and lots of sleeping.  She is only young so I was surprised by how much she slept.

We went to Berrington Hall on Sunday. Bobby (the dog) and I spent two hours walking around the grounds whilst her two friends got chance to visit the house and walled garden.

I took a picture of the apple tree below for a friend ...

and can also tell her that the Auricula Theatre is now complete

Autumn Treat

On Monday afternoon DH and I walked from the Wyche Cutting back home and, because he is not used to walking far, we dropped down onto a lower path which took us through the woods along past St Anne's tearooms.  It was a glorious afternoon and we saw a Buzzard nest in one of the pine trees.

There were of course other things to see including ....

Lovely willowherb seedheads

Sweetchestnuts and leaves

Needless to say that has been the highlight of the week as DH is now exhausted and has not done much else since!!

I love my new radio!!

When my workroom was finished (?) recently I decided I needed a clock, I never know what time it is once I get engrossed in something so this lovely little clock with a lime green edge did the trick. 

Then I really needed access to Radio 4 and, as my DH has pinched my DAB radio, I decided, after a lot of deliberating about the price, to buy myself a lovely little Roberts radio which can have lots of preset stations, so here it is.  To create the right ambience I then added a room atomizer thingy.  Which DH is also eyeing up!!

Looks like I have sheds loads of tissues, but I really only have the one, which I could not resist buying when I saw it. I just moved it so that it appeared in both photographs.  Note the piles of Quilting Arts and Cloth Paper Scissors ready for a quiet moment when I can sit in my chair and browse through them.  Have not shown the new books also waiting to be read.  Dream on .....

Cotton Reels

This is the Mariette Voke watercolour collage that I bought some time ago and was very surprised when I found I had enrolled on a half day workshop with her last week at Ledbury.

Bookbinding or Boxes

I am struggling on with the construction of two boxes that look like leather books.  I seem to keep making more mistakes than usual and am putting it down to being tired.  I find a full day at college is too much on a Friday.

These are Mk 1 and Mk 2 in progress.  I have constructed the inner box, added the curved spine and some leather strips to form raised areas.  The front cover has been added using a piece of cloth with paper pasted to the reverse.  This will form a strong hinge. All corners and the base were strengthened by adhering a strip of thin paper to each one.

 

I have added the top and bottom pieces of thin card to each book box, which are glued to the edge of the box and the curve of the spine to bridge the gap between the spine and the box.

The back cover has had a second piece of grey board added to it to build it up to match the front cover. The front has yet to have another piece of board added with a space cut in the centre ready to accommodate a piece of embroidery which is added once the leather has been attached to the whole of the outside of the book box.

It's that time of year again

This clump of toadstools have appeared in the middle of the back lawn.  They look like they are on guard and watching out for marauders.

Spoon Fed

I have had the most wonderful afternoon at The Weavers Gallery in Ledbury with Mariette Vokes today.  We had to do a watercolour painting of a spoon (or two if you were brave enough).  Then we collaged some bits of ephemera onto the piece of watercolour paper and mounted it to go in a frame.

Due to the fact that I chose to use all of my bit of ephemera, mine would not fit within the confines of the mount so looked a bit different to everyone else's, but hey, who cares, I was really pleased with the outcome and now need to get it mounted in another frame just a bit bigger.  Everyone had a terrific time and the apple cake Mariette had made was equally fantastic.  Well done.

Strange Visitor

I found this little chap sat on the french door glass one day this week and think it might be an Amblyptilia punctidactyla, which is a plume moth found in the UK.  It was very small and they are actually 18-23 mm in size.

Hinged Books

We started off the bookbinding class a couple of weeks ago by making two new book structures which could either be hinged over the spine with leather strips or thread.  I got off to a slow start and it has taken me two weeks to complete them.

This first one was a painted cover with leather strips ... and the second one below is paper covered and has thread stitched across the spine.

In a moment of madness I also agreed to do the 5 week Altered Books class on a Friday morning and whilst it is not really my thing I surprised myself this week by producing these two pages which are WIP ...

I had some bits of Yellow Pages I had used whilst painting something and they provided excellent pieces of paper from which to cut these houses and the boat.  The orange paper in the foreground is some Gelli printed Deli Paper.  I need to do a bit more work on both pages, but am actually quite pleased with them.