More Remedies to Store Away

This is my first attempt at Rosehip syrup; just look at all that beautiful bounty from Mother Nature

I plan to use it as cough/cold medicine. Personally, I've never found cough medicines to be effective unless it's the drowsy variety which simply send me to sleep so I don't notice the fact that I'm coughing. Incidentally, in a very poorly moment, I once had a dose of said cough stuff just before having to collect the kiddies from school with disastrous results (stumbling along, forgot I'd taken the dog with me and left him tied up outside the library- only noticing he was missing at tea time when he wasn't scrounging for food!) Anyway, Rosehips are filled to bursting with vitamin C so I figure the syrup will make excellent medicine.

On the creative front, these beauties are winging their way to their new owner after being in my shop for less than a week- time to buy in fresh supplies, I think

I've decided to think positive and make as much as I want to sell, although actually it's usually when I've been thinking pessimistically that I then seem to sell stuff - perhaps I have quite a delay between my thoughts and their fulfilment?

As I have a stall next weekend, I thought I'd better replenish some of my fine art stock and I've been really missing doing some printing. When I was in college a few years ago, I made this ceramic fish plaque to go on the wall outside (it's still not there yet):

Before I'd glazed it, my then glass tutor told me I could use unglazed ceramic pieces as a mould. I decided to use lots of pieces of glass with blue frit ( tiny pieces of glass). But when it came out of the kiln, the pieces hadn't fused together. So I placed all the pieces onto a plain piece of glass with deliberate spaces in between the pieces, and this is how it looks:

I'm going to have a go at setting it into a piece of wood with a night light behind it (put it on the list). Anyway, this is my inspiration for a lino cut. I've reused the lino from a reduction linocut that I did last year

It might look quite pretty printed from this side.

Before cutting my design into it, I've printed the fish shape in blocks which I will then print the carved one over:

The design will be a celtic pattern that I thought up whilst sitting on the sides of the roller disco last Saturday- forced to rest after a particularly nasty fall and injury- waiting for it to heal before I carve this design into the lino:

I know, I should know better at my age

Jewellery's First Outing

On Sunday I did my first jewellery stall at a fair. I also took along some of my linocuts and my hand-dyed bags. I was side-by-side with my friend Felted House :

Louisa from Felted House, forever tweaking.

My jewellery and cards on display

My framed linocut picture, portfolio and bags (only sold one & it was my favourite one as well). I didn't sell as much as I'd hoped, but neither did my friend, so I presume people just weren't in the spending mood. It was a countryside open day with just a few craft stalls so people were coming to see the alpacas, bees and birds of prey rather than looking to buy. Still it was a good experience and the stuff I brought home with me is already priced ready for the next one in two weeks, I just need to replenish my cards. This seahorse linocut is proving very popular:

Which surprises me. I carved it on the beach last year as a fun card for little pixie face's friends, but all the grown-ups seem to like it too - I even had someone buy it as a congratulations card for her cousin's wedding !

I did sell a few pieces of jewellery, but not enough that I have to restock, so I might list a few more creations on Folksy....

Bags of Bags

Last Friday after visiting my good friend Felted House, I arrived home to find a package waiting for me - don't you just love it? Even when you know what's going to be inside, it still feels like Christmas Day, especially when it's something to create with. Well my package was full of cotton bags, just begging to be decorated ready to sell at a craft market.

Here are some small drawstring bags that I sell as small gift bags or tooth fairy bags; some medium sized gift bags and some shopping bags. These are all in unbleached cotton, from a reputable company with good ethics and environmentally friendly products.

I also bought a couple of Thai Monk Moon bags to see how they go. I was quite impressed with these- they are double thickness cotton with an internal zipped pocket and secured with a wooden bead:

I have printed small bags before with a linocut image that have been quite popular:

But this time I thought I would dye some as well. As I was perusing the dyes, I found a 'rose red' that was reduced. Now I'm not a warm colour person, but do force myself to choose them periodically, because not everyone's taste is the same as mine. So today was a day to dye for. After much scrunching and tieing, I popped them in the machine and duly waited. Disappointment! It doesn't look anything like a rose:

...and as you can see, some lost their ties in the wash to boot. Those that were heavily tied look OK -

 not stunning as I'd hoped...

.. so I was forced to get some bleach out and play:

My dip-dyed  violet ones are much more pleasing to my eye:

I had to stop for the school run, but I've tried my batik stuff on a few bags - leave it to dry and then dye another day tomorrow. Will post the results good and bad.

Christmas is Coming!!

I should learn to practice what I preach about stretching time.. It seemed that almost the whole of last week was spent in my trying to organise the local art network's Christmas sale and I don't know what took me so long, because it seemed to be over in a flash. This was the first time we had done this; we were allocated a space in the local shopping centre & had to provide our own stall. Translated, this means me borrowing tables from the park over the road, transporting them to the shopping centre (up in the lift was interesting - so much so that I decided to make the return journey ( complete with tables) down the stairs - which was even more interesting!!) I now have muscles on my muscles. It had been hard getting people to commit - why do people not respond to emails telling you that they won't be there? Along with the headache of organisation, I decided I didn't have enough low cost items for the stall so decided to expand my greeting card collection and frantically produce linocuts on handmade paper:

And guess what, not one of them sold!

Here's a couple of shots of us when we've just finished setting up the stall:

My stuff was spread over the ends of two tables.

My friend felted house did very well on the day, as did Maggie with her jewellery. In fact I purchased this lovely copper ring from Maggie with my meagre earnings; it's so me and so comfortable, I love it

The day was brightened by my youngest little pixie face coming to visit and her meeting Peppa Pig

The words "Never" and "Again" may have crossed my mind

Stretching Time

I'm currently reading 'Power Thinking' by Caterina Rando having been seduced by the illustrations. One thing that I am finding really useful this week that's in this book is the view that tasks expand to fill the time allocated to them. She says you can allocate half an hour to get ready for that meal tonight, or you can allocate an hour and a half, either way you will get ready and it will take that long- how true! She recommends setting artificial deadlines in your day by which you have to have completed tasks. well, I've been using this since Tuesday and I'm getting through stuff at a rate of knots I feel almost as productive as Fairysteps. I've decided that Christmas is a week earlier than it really is so I have to have everything done by 18th December. The reasoning behind this is, every Christmas I think "if only I had another week, I could relax and enjoy it all". So that's the plan this year, let's see if it works....
So, I've made myself lists of things to do and I'm approaching my tasks like the proverbial bull in a china shop. I'm also trying to let go of my perfectionism and finding that some things will just 'do'. so the linocut that I carved for cotton gift bags...

 Has also been used for my christmas cards...

& I found I'd freed up enough time to make some Christmas cookies for the local Arts Network meeting

Yum!

Oh That Old Thing!

With an exhibition looming and needing to submit 3 pieces for maximum value, I couldn't think of what to do that was suitable (see 'Doodling' post). So I'm offering my snowscene oil painting and Hemlock Hedgerow lino reduction, but was lacking in inspiration. My friend happened to visit and noticed a picture hanging on the wall upstairs. She asked if it was one of mine and said how lovely it was (thankyou Louisa), to which I replied: "That? I did that years ago". She pointed out that it had a bit of a wintry feel about it and thought it would go well in a Christmas exhibition. I smiled politely and thought her soya milk had addled her brain somewhat (sorry Louisa); but a seed had been sown. It was in an awful clip-type frame which didn't do it justice, so I took it to my newest friend, the lady at The Frame Game. together we picked a dark blue mount and almost black frame. This came to £34 - which is why I hate to get things framed that then go into an exhibition and I have to pay commission on top. However, my new friend offers artists a whopping 25% discount, bringing it down to £25.50 which, for an A3 size picture is very reasonable. I've just picked it up and I'm really pleased with it. I might just keep it after all...

I just had to stick this cereal packet in my 'resource' sketchbook. Apparently the company commissioned a linocutter to produce the imges on their cereal boxes. If I ate cereal, it'd have to be Mornflake for me so that I could admire the beautiful packet every day.

Linocut Reduction

Having seen fab stems poking out of the top of cornish hedgerows during the summer, I knew I wanted to represent them in some way using linocut. I thought this would be a good opportunity for my first (and possibly last) attempt at a linocut reduction. A reduction is simply a way of printing more than one colour. As a picture paints a thousand words, it's easier for me to show you what I did.

The first impression is printed with the lightest colour. here is the carved lino with ochre rolled over it.

This shows where I'm starting to carve away more of the lino. The bits carved away will remain white or yellow.

The next two impressions were a dirty green (sounds great doesn't it - I'm so technical!), followed by more carving and a final printing in a very dark blue.

Here's the finished product: