Fiddling around with a naked lady and a teddy bear....

Another picture has been finished.  And a small tapestry of a cross-dressing potter's favourite teddy bear.

In fact, let's deal with the tapestry first, shall we?

As I mentioned in my last post, earlier last year I bought a couple of tapestry kits from the British Museum's Grayson Perry exhibition.  It was of Alan Measles, who is Grayson's 50-year old teddy bear and overlord.  One kit was completed and gifted to my good friend, Katy, for her birthday last April.  The other has sat around, forlornly, waiting for me to find the inclination to pick it up and start it.

The inclination arrived last week.  I had a 'need' to do something with wool (or 'yarn', as our American cousins would have it!).  I'd had enough of crocheting hearts and the Celestarium shawl I mentioned at the end of last year is a bit of a non-starter until I learn how to use double-pointed needles properly (perhaps later this year when I've forgotten how frustrating it is) so I was flailing around a bit until I remembered poor, forgotten Alan.

I located the kit from the back of the cupboard where I'd ignominiously flung him last year and got everything out.  With the kit comes the Aida fabric (the specialist tapestry/cross-stitch fabric with the little holes) with the design printed on it with all the colours, a black and white photocopy of the design with the little symbols for the colours, all the tapestry wool, a needle and a thread sorter (this is basically where you label a short length of wool with its relative letter of the alphabet):



This is a close up of the actual printed design after I'd done all the bright red on the first day:



And here he is finally done, five days later:



I think you'll agree he's a handsome fellow and needs to be framed.  Normally I choose very plain frames for my creations, either black or white.  But Alan is such a colourful, flamboyant character that it would only be fitting for him to have the most elaborate frame I could find:



I think he'd be pleased.

So, onto the naked lady.  About 10 days ago The Guardian had a short article about an exhibition of photographs of nudes by Nadav Kander, with examples of 10 of his photographs.  The models had been coated with an emulsion made from marble dust and therefore look a little like marble statues, a little like dead bodies.  If you bother to read the comments on The Guardian page (at the risk of your blood pressure), you'll see that they're slightly controversial inasmuch as the old 'is photography art?' argument goes.  I didn't - don't - care about that as I firmly believe there is no definition of 'art'; all you can rely on is whether you like something or not.  If you like it, you're more likely to classify it as 'art'; if you don't, then you won't.  Simple.

I like these images.  REALLY like them.  I like their simplicity, their stark black and white ness.  The subtle shading of muscles and fat.  The soft, dough-like body of one of the women versus the sharp angular insect-like man.

One of the pictures really stood out to me, the standing, full frontal nude with gorgeous, flowing red hair.  It's called 'Islay standing':

As soon as I saw it, I thought it would make a stunning picture in white pastels on black paper.  So I decided to have a go at it.

I've never done life drawing before but I'm getting more confident with my ability to observe and draw what I see, more or less accurately so I hoped she wouldn't be too difficult!

I printed off an A4 print of the photo and got quite a large piece of black paper, and started to draw the outline in white pencil, trying to get the proportions right and hoping that she'd all fit on the paper:



I figured that wasn't too bad, so went over the outline in white chalk pastel and started filling her in, from the legs upwards, blending with my fingertips and doing some shading by removing the pastel with a cotton bud:



About 4 days later, this is how far I'd got.  I knew the top of the picture - hands, face, hair - were going to be the most difficult so sat and thought about it for a few days:



Finally decided to be brave and just go for it:



And here she is, final version:



I'm really REALLY pleased with how she's come out.  To be honest she wasn't that tricky to do although I was anxious about the top bit, and I was constantly expecting to accidentally smudge a bit or drop the pastel right down the picture but, for once, that didn't happen.  And the beauty of using chalk pastels (as opposed to oil pastels) is that you can rub it out with a putty eraser.

I'm now giving serious consideration to doing another of the photographs in the series, plus going to life drawing classes next term.

I have to say I seriously think that doing these art classes has been one of the better decisions in my life - I only wish I hadn't given it up for the previous 30 years or so.....

In which I paint a David Hockney.....

There was a fantastic exhibition at the Royal Academy last year of David Hockney's latest paintings.  By the time I was aware of it, it had sold out so, sadly, I didn't get to go, which is a great pity because I think his latest landscapes are absolutely stunning.  I think it's fair to say Hockney is not a painter who is afraid of colour.

I did manage to get to the RA's Summer Exhibition last year (as I've posted about) and the curators had decided to keep one of the really huge Hockneys on the wall for the exhibition so at least I got to see one of them.

Anyway, one of the things I picked up from the Gift Shop at the RA on my way out was a paint-by-numbers 'kit' of one of the smaller David Hockney paintings - 'Garrowby Hill'.  It's obviously been a very popular image because the RA stuck it on everything, from fridge magnets to umbrellas.  But I was hugely tickled by the paint-by-numbers print of it and decided I MUST HAZ.

In fact, I bought two of them because it dawned on me that it would make a rather nice gift for my lovely friend Katy, who is my brain twin.  If I liked it, I'm pretty damn sure that she would too.  I've done this in the past, following the Grayson Perry exhibition at the British Museum (we're both big fans of his work) where I got two copies of the Alan Measles tapestry and completed one of them for Katy's 40th birthday last year.

This time round, though, with the Hockneys, I decided that I was going to have to paint both of them at the same time because, otherwise, I'd do one and send it off, then not get round to doing the other (the one for myself) for months and months and months.  So that's what I did.  Both at the same time.

I took photos as I was going along just so I could post about it.  And before I show you these, I suppose you'll need to see what the original painting looks like, so here it is:

The 'kit' was a 14" x 11" piece of cartridge paper with the design printed on with numbers marked where the relevant colour should go.  You know, just like the paint-by-numbers pictures you used to do as a child.  The kit did not include the paints or a paintbrush but that's okay, as I'm fully stocked with those.  The original painting also has far more detail in it than the finished paint-by-numbers version which only uses 10 colours in total, but I have to say, I think it came out pretty well.

Anyway, here are the photos so you can see for yourself (click on them to embiggen):

I'd already started and had done the first two colours before I realised I wanted to take photos!

This is a close up of the print - you can see the areas to be painted are outlined in black and there's a number in the middle, which corresponds with the colour chart that's included:

This one is adding colour 4, which is a green.

This one is after 5 and 6.  The colours look a little different between these two photos due to the light in the room at the time.

This one shows both paintings at the same time.  There is a difference here in that the one on the left has a warmer pale yellow/green colour compared to the one on the right which is fractionally more lime green - this was because I didn't make up enough of that particular colour to last over both paintings so had to remake a second batch, which didn't quite match.

And this is the final version of one of them.  I think this is the one on the right in the photo above, the more lime green one.  This is the one I actually sent to Katy as it closest in colour to the original Hockney.

I got white box frames for both of them, and sent Katy's off to her today as a housewarming present.  I can honestly say that it's a handpainted Hockney - and I hope she likes it!!

Finally, this is the one I kept, framed and on the wall:

It was an interesting experience doing paint-by-numbers again, something I've not done since I was probably 10 years old, but I'm not sure I'd rush to do another one.  For one thing, some of the painting was incredibly teeny-tiny, somewhat testing my eyesight and patience (it took 2-and-a-half weeks to paint both pictures, a few hours a day), and for another, I think I'd rather do my own paintings.  But, yeah, having a handpainted Hockney on your wall is not to be sneezed at!


Other arty things have been happening at Jones Towers - art classes have started again, I've picked up the tapestry needle to finally do my Alan Measles needlework, I've been making some rather nice hearts in crochet, and I've been getting to grips with portraying the human form in pastels!!

All indoor activities (apart from art classes) you'll note - snow is very pretty to look at through the window but I don't relish walking on it.

Hope all my lovely readers have kept warm and snug during the cold snap - I spotted snowdrops in my garden yesterday while feeding the birds - so spring isn't far away (and have you noticed it's getting lighter in the evenings?)

The Jones' go on a day trip

Yes, indeed.  We actually left the house to 'do a thing'.  This is our all-purpose catchphrase which does exactly what it says on the tin.  It covers extramural activities which are not run-of-the-mill, i.e., a trip to the supermarket doesn't count, but a visit to, say, the Roman Fishbourne Palace at Chichester does.  It also covers a lot of household chores.  Again, not the everyday ones, like doing laundry or cooking, but, for example, mowing the lawn, or cleaning the windows, or clearing the clutter in the garage, they count as a 'thing'.  So to 'do a thing' is, in our little lives, noteworthy, whether it's a large 'thing' or small.

On Wednesday this week, then, we did a thing.  We went to the Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition at Tate Britain.  If you fancy going I suggest you put your skates on because it finishes this Sunday, 13 January 2013.

It dawned on me last weekend that this was the final week for the exhibition and I'd promised myself that I'd go and while TLH is in between contracts, it meant he could come with me and we could go during the week.  Hooray!  Further, TLH said he'd drive up rather than us getting the train.  Hooray x 2!

Yes, driving to London can be a pain in the arse (we went up just before Christmas to the Barbican to see the marvellous Philip Glass Ensemble + full orchestra + full choir play to a screening of Koyaanisqatsi (and, no, I didn't blog about it - see Black Puppy posts previously - but it was bloody fantastic and the best orchestral thing we've seen all year) and it took us 3 hours to get there due to rush hour, roadworks and all the traffic lights being against us.  There was a great deal of swearing) but train fares have gone up so much that it's now, just about, more economical - and a darn sight more comfortable - for us to drive up there.  We go up in the little car (a Smart car) which is ideal for city driving and is frugal on the petrol.  It's small, nippy, easy to manoeuvre and a doddle to park in small spaces.  I've just done the figures and it was also £10 cheaper for us to take the car than go on the train (two rail travelcards leaving at 11am at £27.10 each = £54.20 versus London congestion charge of £10 + all day parking £35 = £45).  Even including the petrol for the journey it was cheaper.  Plus I get to sit down from door to door and share a small space with just my husband rather than the heaving bulk of humanity that would have been cramming itself into a rush hour train home.  AND the journey was a dream - 1 hr 15 mins from driving off our driveway to parking in a car park practically underneath the Houses of Parliament, and about the same for the return journey.



We hadn't pre-booked tickets for the exhibition but hoped we could just do a walk in.  We got to the Tate about 1pm to find that they were selling tickets for 4pm entry, which was okay by us, so tickets were purchased and we went for a wander. 

We decided to find somewhere for lunch - a sit-down place, nicer than a Pret a Manger but not fancy.  You know the sort of place.  We sauntered down Horseferry Road and eventually found a rather nice place called The Loose Box, which described itself as a 'bar + kitchen'.  It was modern - wood floors, dark wood tables, comfy sofas, pistachio green walls - and about two-thirds full which, for a Wednesday lunchtime in early January is not bad going.  The food was good and the prices - for a central London, posh-ish eatery - surprisingly cheap.  Bread with olive oil & balsamic vinegar was brought to the table, we had a large soft drink each, TLH had beer-battered fish and chips with mushy peas, salad and tartare sauce which was falling off his plate, I had king prawn linguine with chilli squid, coriander and lime, 2 large coffees to finish - £31 the lot (not including the tip).  Believe me, that's good value for London.

Luckily it seems we had picked a day with the best weather of 2013 so far - clear blue sky and brilliant sunshine, cold in the shade but the sun was warm on your back.  As we left the bar, I remarked on how gorgeous it was and what a fantastic day to go up on the London Eye.  So TLH suggested we did exactly that!  I've not been on the Eye before but I've always thought that booking in advance is a bit of a lottery weather-wise, such a shame to go all that way and find, as British weather so often is, it's too cloudy to see anything. 

So we walked over Lambeth Bridge, past Lambeth Palace and along the Embankment.

 





 TLH then noticed that the Eye wasn't moving.  At all. 
 

We prepared ourselves for disappointment and we weren't disappointed on that score.  It was shut for maintenance from 7 until 19 January.  Bum.

We were still a couple of hours away from getting into the exhibition, so we carried on walking along the Embankment towards Waterloo Bridge.  As we were approaching the rail bridge which goes to Charing Cross station, I noticed a lot of people taking photographs pointing the way we'd just walked.  So I turned round, and could see exactly why:



TLH said he wanted to walk over Waterloo Bridge, and the staircase at the side took us beside the Hayward Gallery which currently has an enormous baobab tree made out of textiles beside it:



The view from Waterloo Bridge was, as ever, utterly magnificent:



TLH suggested I should have a play with the 'panorama' function on my iPhone (by the way, all these photos were taken with my phone) - some worked better than others, but it was fun:



We crossed the bridge then caught a bus back down to near the Houses of Parliament:



We walked through the 'front garden' bit of Westminster Abbey.  I really REALLY want to do a trip to see inside the Abbey - we were doing to do it on this trip as well but there just wasn't enough time, but later in the year, I've promised myself:



And we got back to the Tate at about 10 minutes to 4.

It was busy.  I suspect there were a lot of people who, like me, had gone 'oh, shit!  The PRB exhibition finishes in, like, 5 days - quick, to that London!'.  There were 7 rooms of painting and artefacts, and the first couple were really quite packed, but the crowds thinned out in the others.

I thought it was amazing.  I've always loved PRB paintings but have only ever seen them reproduced in books or the TV screen so I was totally blown away by the colours and just how fecking big some of them were.  I had no idea. 

The skill and artistry of the painters is completely breath-taking.  In fact, there are no superlatives.  Each painting was better than the previous one until I found myself getting a bit overwhelmed.  The last room very nearly did me in.  I've never cried at a painting before but the Edward Burne-Jones series of Perseus paintings (of which the exhibition had 3) and, especially, his 'Golden Stairs' had me actually welling up, they were THAT beautiful:

The Rock of Doom

The Doom Fulfilled

The Baleful Head

The Golden Stairs

Of course, these images on this blogpage do the originals no justice whatsoever.  You can't see how miraculously the fabrics have been painted, for example, and the little pictures here just don't convey the size of them either.  The Golden Stairs is almost 9 feet tall.  The 3 Perseus paintings are each a little over 5 feet tall.  I'd definitely need a bigger house to put them all in.  That, or marry Andrew Lloyd-Webber as he owns a few of these.

We drove home in the rush hour and got fish 'n' chips on the way back so I didn't have to cook.  All in all, a fabulous day - everything went smoothly, no tempers got lost and nobody drownded.

There are other exhibitions on my list for this year that I want to see so check back later on to see if I actually get there!

Hello, 2013!

Yesterday, New Year's Eve, TLH and I decided to visit his mum to give her her christmas pressie and take her out to lunch.  However seeing as how she still lives in his native homeland, visiting her involves a total of at least six hours driving (3 hours both ways).  It's a long old haul and even in a car as comfy as ours, you still end up with aching anatomy.  Still, despite the driving rain and spray on the motorway there wasn't actually too much traffic so the journey was relatively quick.

TLH's mum, by her own choice, decided to move into a nursing home a couple of years ago now - she was (then) recently widowed and not so nimble on her feet, and the house was too big for her to maintain - and I have to say it really seems to have agreed with her.  Yes, there was obvious trepidation on everyone's part, not least due to the media horror stories of terrible nursing homes, and sadness and anxiety on her part on leaving the house where she had lived for the last 50 years but the home that she chose, after visiting several, is absolutely lovely.  It has a terrific atmosphere, all the staff are friendly and kind, it's very clean, modern and cosy.  There are endless activities put on for the residents several times a week.  They have a vegetable garden, and there's chickens and ducks scratching around, and his mum's social life has expanded exponentially.  You see, the town where she lives is quite small and she's lived there (or nearby) all her life.  She was also one of the town's school-teachers and, consequently, knows absolutely everyone, and all their family, and their neighbours and all their families too.  And they all liked her as well, so what we're finding is that not only is she now getting visits in the home from her own family and neighbours, but also getting visits from other residents' family members because she'd taught them in the past!  And she loves it!  She used to get visitors when she lived in the family house but not nearly so many as she gets now in the nursing home.  I'm so pleased it's all worked out for her, and that she found such a lovely place to be.

Anyway, that was a bit of a side track but the upshot was that we ended up not doing anything for New Year's Eve because we were, frankly, a bit knackered by the time we got home.  We managed to stay up until midnight and toasted in 2013 with a cup of tea (we know how to party) and then I went to bed.  Phew!  Rock 'n' roll!

This morning was a very lazy affair and I made an American breakfast for us - pancakes, sausages, crispy bacon and proper maple syrup - because, well, we like them a lot, hadn't had one for ages and we've been doing marathon TV watching sessions of all 5.5 series of Breaking Bad and watching Jesse and Walt eating at Dennys diners had reminded us of actually just how much we do like them.

And now, of course, I have a whole bottle of maple syrup that we'll need to get through.  I suppose I'll just have to get more pancake mix....

A short while after, TLH's sister first-footed it through our door but didn't bring us a lump of coal (isn't that what they're supposed to do?) but we gave her a cup of coffee anyway. 

After she left I decided that, as the weather was so beautiful today, I'd go for my first run of the year.  Just a short one, to see how lumpen I felt having not run at all since 17 December.  Answer: Extremely.  Did 2.5 miles but wasn't exactly quick and did walk most of it back but at least I got out there and have made a start on my 250 miles in 2013 challenge.  Only 247 to go!!

So, as I type, TLH has taken himself upstairs for a nap and I'm about to take the opportunity to try and catch up with a bit of the telly that I've taped over the last week, while I gird my loins to cast on the Celestarium shawl I told you about in my last post but as that involves learning a LOT of new things (like how to use double pointed needles, and then using circular needles, and reading a chart, and adding beads as I'm going along), it's a bit daunting but faint heart ne'er won fair maid so I'll take a deep breath and have a go.

Tomorrow.

Over for another year...

Well, that's Christmas done and dusted for another year.  I'm pretty glad it's done.  I've always found Christmas to be stressful - the lengthy buildup, the expectation, the demands on your time from people you don't particularly want to see, the non-invitations from people you really would like to see, the teeming hordes of Christmas shoppers (although online shopping is a boon in that regard, as long as the delivery couriers don't nick your parcels - long story...), the hell of doing the shop for the Christmas food.  I mean, yeah, this happens every year.

But this year I had the added bonus of being circled by the Black Dog again.  Except it wasn't quite as much of a Black Dog as the episode I had and wrote about last year, so perhaps it was more of a Black Puppy lolloping around.  But that makes it sound more adorable than it actually was.  This year's Christmas Episode of Woe luckily didn't involve my inner critic whispering in my ear how fucking useless I was and how no-one would miss me if I died, although I could hear her trying to get in through the door.  No, this year involved walking around for a good couple of weeks with The Stone of Misery heavily lodged in my chest, accompanied by much Deep Sighing and a complete lack of desire to Get Anything Done.  There was some sobbing and consideration of huge life changes, all undertaken in privacy in the garage and now all discarded as just me being mental (I've come through the other side and am now 'normal' again) and being oversensitive although there were extenuating circumstances.  But never mind, I'm back on an even keel again and that's to be welcomed.  Obviously I'm keeping an eye on these episodes and should they start getting more frequent and/or more intense, I shall head off to my doctor so fast you won't see me for dust.

So Christmas was 'interesting'.  We stayed at home and didn't see anyone on the actual day.  We had chicken with all the trimmings (no point in a big turkey for just the two of us - Sylvester the Cat doesn't eat real poultry anymore), opened our presents to each other - I got a Garmin GPS running watch thingy and a brilliant wireless hifi system, called Sonos,  to play music in every room in the house (I can highly recommend it - you can control it from your smartphone, laptop and tablet).  I also got a selection of stuff from my Amazon wishlist which makes me sound rather alarming - a three book set on the history of the Third Reich and two of the operas in Wagner's Ring Cycle.  We'll just draw a discreet veil over that, shall we?

I also got this brill thing called the 'Big Head Squirrel Feeder' which I spotted earlier in the year and thought was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen.  I laughed till I nearly had an accident.  The Lovely Husband had been paying attention and secretly got one for me for Christmas.  It's a large, hollow, caricature of a squirrel's head that you fill with seed and suspend about a foot from the ground.  The squirrels come along and eat the seeds while looking incredibly comical.  Look:

How could you NOT want one?

We've not set it up yet but I promise there will be photos when I do.

My lovely mum got me a painting that I'd taken a fancy to at a local arts society exhibition, my brother and his family got us wine.

We went to my brother's yesterday for the family get-together and present swap.  I gave my brother and his wife a painting I'd done of their two littlest kids taken from a photo he'd taken of them, which, I think, they liked:



I'd also made little crocheted rose brooches and knitted some twirly scarves for my sister-in-law and my two oldest nieces:
 

which they all seemed genuinely delighted with (thereby declaring themselves knitworthy), but none more so than my littlest 2-year old niece who grabbed her mum's scarf, wrapped it round her neck and went running around the room!  This, of course, means that I will now knit her her very own one in pink for her birthday in February!

So food was eaten and drink consumed (I now know I like Amaretto...), and a most convivial time was had by all.

We're now in that liminal period between Christmas and New Year, when thoughts turn to 2013.  I'm not normally one for New Year's Resolutions and there are some which will go without saying, such as 'do more painting', but I do think I'd rather like to try and lose some weight if possible and I'm definitely setting myself a new total distance running target because - drumroll, please - I ACHIEVED MY GOAL OF RUNNING 100 MILES IN 2012!!



I actually achieved this goal a few days before Christmas but couldn't be bothered to blog about it (see references to the Black Puppy above), but I did do it.  I actually ran further because I only set the target at the beginning of March so it doesn't take into account January and February's distances but, on the other hand, there were at least 6 to 8 weeks between March and December when I couldn't run at all due to crappy feet issues so perhaps it all evens out.

I decided to take a complete break from running over the Christmas period and will start again in the New Year.  And I've decided to stick my neck out and try and run 250 miles in 2013.  I'm pretty damn sure I could do 200 miles fairly easily - after all, that's only 3.8 miles per week or 16.66 miles per month, and my last two runs were both 5 miles each.  So adding an extra 50 overall increases that to 4.8 miles per week (i.e., only an extra mile)/20.8 miles per month.  I have at least two online friends who have both run over 1000 miles in 2012 alone so I'm thinking I can achieve a piddling 250 - as long as my feet hold out, though.  This year I've had to contend with a neuroma in my left foot and plantar fasciitis/tendonitis in my right but both seem to have sorted themselves out - fingers crossed this lasts.

So that's the running.  As for crafts, I'm joining a Knit-Along project with a group on Ravelry of a circular shawl in the form of a star-chart of the northern sky, with beads for constellations.

 I'm doing mine in a very dark blue with silver-lined glass beads for the stars.  A mass cast-on is scheduled for 1 January and I'm hoping that with approx. 200 other people also doing it at the same time as me that there'll be plenty of help available.  I sincerely hope so!  Anyway wish me luck!

I'll also do my best to try and blog and bit more, I think.  I know I'm not the most interesting and scintillating of writers but this blog does sort of act as a kind of diary and I'm currently finding it especially useful for keeping track of the arty painting stuff so for that alone it's worth keeping it going.

And with that, I shall love you and leave you, and wish you all the very best for 2013.

More Arty Stuff....

Ah.  Well, seems we're in need of a bit of a catch up again, aren't we?!? I have actually been pretty busy with the painting and stuff....

Last post but one I last left you halfway through a painting of a stormy sky over the sea somewhere in New Zealand.  That painting was finished quite some time ago now and has been hanging on the wall.  I took photos of progress and if I can find them, I'll post them.  Hang on.....

Right, this was the last photo I posted, and I had sketched in the basic outlines of the seashore and hills, and had started working on the stormy sky and rain storm.

This was it again after a few more hours work, the final version (there were more inbetween photos but I can't find them now) - the picture's a bit blue because of the lighting in the room at the time but you get the idea:

And this is it in a black frame and on the wall.  I took the picture with flash which is reflected in the glass unfortunately but you get a better idea of the blue/grey colour of the sky, and the blue/grey/green of the sea with the flash:



Next in my queue was to have a go at painting this very striking red cabin in the snow, taken in New England, that I found on Flickr:

And this is my final version, framed in white and hanging on the wall.  If you look closely, you'll see that I decided to save my sanity by not trying to draw in all the clapboard lines.  I don't think it's come out too badly:



I posted a link on the original photo's page to my Flickr page with the painting on it, and, rather fabulously, the photographer contacted me to say how much she liked the painting!  Thank Jebus!  I knew I was taking a risk by alerting her to the painting as I wasn't sure how it stood on copyright issues (it's fine, by they way - there's no problem with someone producing and publishing a drawing or painting based on someone else's work; the problem occurs if I were to reproduce the original photo and claim it as my work) or even if they would like it.  So, hooray!

Next up, then, I decided to have a crack at pastels again. All my paintings so far have been in acrylics and I've had some difficulty using pastels for some reason.  But my brother (who I think is a fantastic photographer), took this wonderfully enigmatic photo of his eldest daughter (and my niece), Jessica, wearing old-fashioned cardboard 3D glasses, then put it through a filter to make it black and white but left one lens red.  I've always loved this photograph, it looks very 1960s to me, what with Jessie's hair and the glasses:

 I thought I'd use black, grey, white and red pastels on black paper, A4.

This is the picture before putting in the glasses:


And this is it finished off:


I think it came out pretty well.  I'm so pleased I took these photos, though, before cocking it up by spraying it with fixative as it took out a lot of the white.  I tried to rework it but decided I was more like to make it worse so have left it.

Next - told you I've been busy! - was another seascape.  A quick little afternoon's painting, this one, again chosen from a photograph I found on Flickr (unfortunately Blogger seems to have cut off the right hand end of this wave but if you click on the photo it will take you to the original on Flickr):



And this is my 8"x6" painting of that photo:



My current painting is not actually going terribly well, I don't think.  I found this interesting architectural photo on Flickr and loved the angles and colours, and thought it was worth a bash:



But it's proving to be a tricky bugger.  I'm not sure it's working so may well not show you if it doesn't come out reasonably well!  Which would be a shame but it's my first attempt at painting a cityscape and it's something I'd like to get my head round a bit so maybe with a bit more practice I might produce something worth showing other people.

And that's where I'm up to so far.  I have a plan for a close up portrait of my brother, and I downloaded an online acrylic painting tutorial on impressionist seascapes which I will also get round to doing at some point.  Oh, and this term's art classes have now finished.  I have to admit I didn't go to the last three classes which were meant to be spent entirely on working on one large painting of a still life of your own choosing.  But I couldn't make my mind up what I wanted to paint and, to be honest, I wasn't really that interested in doing a still life (I was busy doing seascapes and pastel portraits, as you can see!) but as it's just a class for interest and there's no qualifications to be gained or anything, I decided to not bother with doing them.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did the course as I learnt some interesting techniques this term - mono printing, ink washes, mixing hues/tints/tones/shades - which was brilliant but I'm not really that interested in painting still lifes at this point.

I have, though, signed up for the spring term which will be on landscapes and cityscapes, which is much more my thing and I'm looking forward to.  I expect there'll be lots of talk about perspective and vanishing points.

Anyway, lovelies, I don't expect I'll be posting again before Christmas (or perhaps just once, if I manage to reach a particular running milestone before the New Year!) so if I don't, I hope y'all have the Christmas you want, whether it's surrounded by family, or just on your own, and thanks for stopping by the blog!

Iris Scarf - Taa-daah!

Not had a Taa-daah post for a while but I've finally finished something so I can show you!

You may recall this post way back in the mists of February this year when I went to the Unravel Show at Farnham Maltings and came back with some lovely hand-dyed wool and a kit from The Natural Dye Studio to make a rather stunning crochet scarf.

Well, I finally got round to starting the scarf in June this year and half-heartedly worked at it, on and off, throughout this year's 'summer' until I eventually got into it and knuckled down about a month ago, finally finishing it off yesterday.

I couldn't get my head around the pattern for each 'snowflake' to begin with, and then the pattern called for joining them as you go, which further did my head in, until I had a word with myself, started to concentrate a bit and realised, actually, that the pattern was pretty easy and the joining was logical as long as I paid a bit of attention.

I tend to do my knitting/crochet at night in front of the telly and, yes, there was some unravelling necessary when I got distracted by Dexter or The Walking Dead and realised I'd cocked up the stitch or, more likely, had forgotten what came next so this, for me, was most definitely not a mindless piece of crochet-as-meditation - I actually had to be actively involved!

But it's finished!  And it's lovely!  And the colours are stunning! And, no, I'm not going to block it because that would drive me insane!

As it's a gorgeously sunny morning here today at Jones Towers, I took the opportunity to drape the scarf over the bridge handrail to photograph it in all its glory for you all:

Isn't it lovely?

I have a bit of wool left over in all the colours so what I'm going to do now is make up some more of the individual 'snowflakes' to hang as Christmas decorations, either on the tree or in windows.

If you fancy getting one of the kits yourself, you can get it here although I think they're out of stock at the moment.  The kit comes with all the wool and the pattern but you'll need to get yourself a 2.75mm crochet hook.  And it really is very easy - if you can crochet a chain, a half-treble and a treble then you can make this scarf.