Gentle Stroll

The weather was so mild on Friday that DH and I went off to Croft Castle, situated at Yarpole near Leominster. We investigated the Ancient Tree Walk. Some of the trees are between 400 and 500 years old and, although very damaged now, are amazing to see.

A lovely sweet chestnut with deep ridges in its bark.

There are several avenues of ancient sweet chestnut trees.

Also a beautiful walled garden.

Christmas Cycling

Fitted in two organised cycle rides this week. One on Saturday of 22 miles and then a very short Christmas Ride Sunday.

Ride Leaders dressed as sprouts

There were 12 of us in total

There were 32 sprouts, 3 elves, a Father and Mother Christmas and then the rest of us. It was a damp ride but at least it was not raining and the temperature was around 12 degrees.  We had to have the obligatory cake and coffee at the end of course.

Note the earrings!!

Walk at Croome

Dragged DH out for a walk today as the temperature was a balmy 12 degrees. He did not walk all the way round with me though and took a shorter route to meet me near the end do he missed this lovely view.

and also this one ….  but did see these chaps

Chilly Cycle Ride

The weather was warm enough for me to get out on my bike this morning so did a 22 mile circular route via Clive's Fruit Farm at Upton on Severn.  I am sure the half way stop for coffee and a huge mince pie went a long way to getting me home again.  Really enjoyed being out in the fresh air after the wet weather.

Yorkshire Travelling Journal

I have recently received my Travelling Journal back from its trip around Yorkshire between my lovely stitching friends up there.  What a fabulous surprise ….

This was my first two pages followed by these two ….

The drawing was transferred using the Gum Arabic Transfer method I learnt from Sue Brown in Cheltenham.

This was the next two pages added by my friends. Think I will post the rest in the days leading up to Christmas.

The Early Bird

It is surprising what you come across when you least expect it.  These jolly little robins perched on the postbox in Malvern Link when I went to get my haircut yesterday. I think there were probably lights attached too.

All Wrapped Up

Have had to make a present to go into a Christmas Cracker recently so have been decorating the outside of some crackers from a kit.  I have even put a snap into them so let's hope they actually do the job. I surprised myself with how they turned out as it was a job I have been putting off for absolutely ages ….

The top one has not been scrunched up and they all need further embellishment yet.  Only one has something inside it at the moment.

The Pears Keep Multiplying

This week was the last Solo Printing session in Cheltenham before Christmas and we were all doing viscosity inking. It changes the print completely. A base ink is rubbed into the plate and cleaned up and this one had a dark brown. Then a thinned ink is rollered onto the surface (Peter Wray Grey) with a second thicker ink rolled next (Raw Sienna).

A change of base ink to Prussian Blue gave a completely different result.

When I originally printed this plate with just one colour of oil based ink the centre of the pear remained almost white.  With viscosity inking the Raw Sienna stuck to the surface and gave a completely different result.

This was the original print where the base colour was Prussian Blue with a little Red Oxide blended into the bottom corner. A very different print to the viscosity one.

Enjoying some Fine Weather

Dry and warm enough for me to cycle without getting frozen fingers today so I did a short circular route from Croome Park, taking in Pirton, Stonehall Common and Wadborough.  Only 14 miles, but not bad with the 23 miles I did on Sunday out towards Upton past Clive's Fruit Farm.  The sun even managed to shine for a short while. Swapped the scone for a chocolate brownie with my cup of coffee when I got back to Croome and had stowed my bike back in the car.

It all made up for the catastrophe at home of the rotary washing line dumping a line full of wet clothes onto the garden twice before I realised that the catch that holds the arms up was broken!! New rotary washing line was required to fix it.

Still on a 'Pear' Theme

The original collagraph plate was created using bits of wallpaper pasted to the mountboard base, with skim and repair being added to parts of the background surface afterwards followed by waterproof PVA to lighten areas. Whilst I liked the image it was not really what I wanted to achieve so this past week it was back to the drawing board and I remade a couple of my printing plates.

This is one of the new plates and now the pears have been formed by using masking tape on selected areas with a thin layer of skim and repair being added over the image.  Oiled wallpaper was then pressed into this whilst it was wet to create the texture. The background is waterproof PVA built up in layers to provide texture and light areas.  A small amount of carborudum was used to add contrast in the darker parts as well as cutting into the surface of the mountboard. Shame I had forgotten what colour oil based ink I used on the first plate.  I think it was Prussian Blue and Raw Sienna whilst I changed to Prussian Blue and Red Oxide on the second plate.

Mainly Prussian Blue

Next week I am going to try viscosity printing and could also look at the addition of chine collee to the surface.

All Things Pear Shaped

I recently made a card for a friend's 60th birthday and it featured lots of pears too .. don't think I had started the pear sketchbook on black paper at that point.

Pear Book Pages

Continuing to play in my Black Pear Book.  I found a scrap of a picture in a magazine and stuck it onto a page realising it had similarities to an existing page that I had collaged and drawn onto. The bottle was a piece of Deli Paper that had been Gelli printed. I added a bit of oil pastel on top of it to pick up soe highlights.

A combination of lots of bits and pieces and a little more work required before I will be happy with this.

The top half of this page has had shapes cut out of it to reveal aspects of the page behind it.

Team Rickshaw

Got up nice and early this morning to watch Team Rickshaw pass our house on the next leg of their journey. They left Great Malvern at 7.00 am and were setting a good pace, but they have some hard climbing to do today looking at their route. I had to miss their arrival last night in Malvern as it was the first Women on Wheels AGM.

Playing with Pears

This week I have been playing in a black A6 sketchbook with pear images. Using my small Gelli Plate, some tiny cut outs and a limited range of acrylic paint I managed to fill up quite a bit of my time.  Also got out my Neocolour I and II crayons to add a bit more colour. Loved the little pears on the lefthand page once I had enhanced them. I forget I can actually do things!

This print was a happy accident. It was a mixture of grey paint over the top of some white that had dried on the Gelli Plate. The ghostly image appeared because I did not press down hard enough when I printed onto the black paper. The pear cut outs I used were going to be a concertina that opened out in the book, but did not really work, so back to the drawing board on them.

From a pile of previously printed papers I found the orange pear which had been printed using an actual pear sliced in half. The bottom pear was created using an expanded sponge print block with white acrylic which was then crayoned over to add colour.

A bit of gold Gelli Plate printing on the corner and a collaged pear from a previous printing session, which probably had the use of a stencil to create the background pattern and a sticky back funky foam print block stuck to a piece of foam core board for the pear outline.

Spooky Ride

Women on Wheels organised a Steady Ride over 31 miles today which took in some unusual characters along the way. Pink appeared to be the predominant dress code too.

We started from Upton Snodbury and stopped off along the route at Bishampton for coffee and cake. There was the opportunity for a sprint for those who wanted to up their pace, we crossed a ford (by bridge) and took in the pumpkin man at Naunton Beauchamp. Weather stayed dry and reasonably warm so it was a great ride.

What have I been up to?

Over the course of the past 3-4 weeks I have been guiding a friend in the making of these cushions. Apart from the challenges of getting the text onto the fabric, she was also left handed which made life interesting for me. They are a present for her son and I am sure he is going to love them.

Hopefully she will continue with her stitching …. her daughter now wants a cushion too!! She is obviously a very capable embroiderer and I am hoping that she will continue to develop her creativity. The benefits of this will enhance her life plus it is also very good for one's soul.

Chilly Start

Not a very exciting photograph but a welcome thing to see when you have cycled 20 miles.  I seem to get an extra spurt of energy when I know I am almost back to Croome and there is delicious coffee and a scone to refresh me, although there is still a nice slope to encounter on the way back to the entrance from here.

I took advantage of the sunshine on Sunday and rode from Malvern to Croome Park, via Diglis Bridge in Worcester.  I did an extra 4 mile loop to get my mileage up and fill in some time until DH met me at Croome and gave me a lift home in the car.

It was a very chilly start and I thought I had taken leave of my senses, but I soon warmed up once I got pedalling. At least my hands stayed warm in my lobster gloves, so it cannot have been as cold as I thought. It was around 9 degrees when I arrived at Croome.

Museum in the Park

On Wednesday of this week I was meant to be helping a friend in the Forest of Dean stitch some cushions together, but she was not well and cancelled last minute.  It was such a nice day that I decided to drive myself to Stroud to visit the current print exhibition at The Museum in the Park that I have been trying to get to for the past 2-3 weeks.  I was not disappointed. This lovely piece of vintage embroidery was on display in the general part of the Museum and it just demonstrates that you do not have to look far for inspiration when you are stuck!!

Sue Brown's piece of work was inspired by this drawer of moths.

Lots of different methods used to produce her prints onto silk - Eco Printing and Gum Arabic Transfer amongst them.

At the rear of the Museum there is also a calm and peaceful garden which is well worth a visit.  The borders are full of dried seedheads and Michaelmas Daisies at the moment. Alas the exhibition ends this weekend I am afraid.