Introducing Bluebell and Cloud

I haven't said much about my cats so far, but thought I would mention them briefly. My current two are Bluebell and Cloud. Bluebell is a five year-old bluepoint Birman. Here she is:

The 'new boy' is Cloud (fluffy and white), about two years old. I adopted him from Cats Protection three weeks ago. He is really enjoying himself, and had his first unsupervised walk round the garden today. Here he is indoors:

They are both lovely cats (I would say that!) and getting on fairly well with each other, although Cloud gets hissed at if he is too boisterous.

Contemporary Quilt Group Summer School

Had a great weekend at the Contemporary Quilt Group Summer School at Alston Hall, Lancashire. I did the workshop with Jae Maries called "Splash, tint and daub" where we were printing on and colouring fabrics with Serical Pigment Inks. We were working to a theme of "mood swings"; I chose "fixed" and "fluid" as my complementary "moods" and pictures of rocks and water to to show these. Here are some of the fabrics I coloured during the weekend:

Now I just have to do something with them.

Drawing and painting course

I have been looking back through the work I have done at the local college's drawing and painting class. I have been getting to grips with basics like colour mixing, and I think one of the lessons I am learning is to have fun!

Here are some of the things I have done so far:

Quite a bit of colour mixing, including these colour wheels.

Pastel drawings of fruit:

Watercolour painting:

Pen and watercolour on tissue paper:

Acrylic paints on a piece of hardboard covered in Modroc:

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!

The weather here in Lancashire is bright but cold. I went out for a walk yesterday and there was a freezing fog and ice crystals on the trees and grasses. It was beautiful. Here are a couple of the photos I took.

Best wishes to everyone for 2009.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.

More artificial rocks

Apologies for the gap since the last post. In the meantime, I have been learning how to mix paints at evening class, so I now don't need black paint to get grey! This has helped with the painting on these two 'pieces of rock'.

Some progress...

I had a 'free day' on Sunday, so managed to make some progress on my research module. I have been repainting one of my bits of paving stone (made of corrugated cardboard) for several weeks now. I decided to have one last attempt at improving on the colour etc.

I also started a new one! This is limestone recreated in papier mache. It is meant to be the (vertical) side of the rock at the edge of a limestone pavement, where the rain has eroded depressions leaving well-defined edges between them. When it is completely dry (and removed from the foil), I will paint it in suitable shades of grey.