From Pure White to Vivid Green

Hello! Its been a few days since I posted. I seem to have been running around, largely after children and dogs and slowly getting my Etsy shop together-I'm scanning as I type.

I hope you had a good weekend. Mine involved baking, cooking a roast and walking the dogs. On  Saturday evening we had dinner with friends which was very pleasant.

The landscape has been transformed from pure white to vivid greens interspersed with flood water and mud. The birds seem to be wholly relieved and birdsong fills the air and sounds like a whisper of Spring arriving.

I walked with some new friends from school again today. Nice to walk somewhere different and get to know new people. Saw two Egret's-pure white, delicate, Stork-like birds, a type of heron from Europe.  I'm planning to paint some very soon along with some other species to add to my series. So far I have a gull and a finch and a print will be available of a swallow painting that I sold.

Lots of ideas for new paintings so plenty to be getting on with.

Here are some photographs taken over the past few days.

Starting to thaw

Last snowfall

Coot Prints

Icy Pool

A Day of Preparation

Hi there!

Hope you've had a good couple of days.

I seem to have spent a lot of time walking with Betty as well as friends old and new. The snow is becoming less attractive now, brown and slushy. I very nearly fell over after dropping the girls at school this morning. I'm wholly relieved I managed to stay upright, especially as we are new to this school and one of the dad's was walking parallel to me. I would've been tres embarrassing!

I've spent a fair chunk of my time since getting home taking photographs and trying, (emphasis on the trying) to get my banner for my Etsy shop sorted. Still, I'm getting there and I certainly hope to have something on there by next week.

Here are some snaps of some of the pictures I'll be putting in my little shop window. I've been working out ways to make them look pretty and appealing. I think I prefer these snaps to the ones I took for the purpose.

I've also added a few more sections to my blog. They include three "My Inspirations" sections and some new photographs of me taken by my daughter Zoe, made especially funny by my youngest, Annie, crossing her eyes and pulling faces at me from behind her. Family life, eh!

Have a great evening. Mine will involve me twisting my husband's arm to get him to help me with aforementioned banner.

Jo x

Poppy Fields 1 and 2, inspired by a view I saw last summer near Rushall in Wiltshire & painting of a Silver Birch.

Silver Birch paintings. I noticed last Autumn that the leaves, vivid in their fading glory appeared to be floating and suspended mid-air under the branches. I tried to capture this effect in this painting. I think it looks like a Japanese garden. I love the way that sometimes, nearly always in fact, a painting becomes what it wants to be. It finds its own destination. I often embark on a painting with little idea of how it will end up, I just listen and it tells me where it wants to go. I love that.

Poppy Fields & a little painting of a hare that I did a few months ago. I rather like him. The colours are quite bright and cheery, lovely for a child's bedroom.

Public Art, Enhancing the World Around us and Helping Wildlife too

Hi!

The children went back to school today after all those snow days and I managed to get a walk in with my friend at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. We walked through Eaton Park to get there and our attention was drawn to a piece of public art high up in a tree. A series of little dens for birds and insects were wrapped around the tree's trunk and up some of the branches like a little housing estate for bugs and birds. The person who drew our attention to it didn't really get it, and was rather cross that it had taken several days, or more importantly, pounds to put it in place.

 I was struck by how art always provokes a reaction, especially when it is within the public domain where it can be stumbled upon by chance rather than confined to the white walls of gallery. Its as though it has to provide an obvious function-(in this case it does, homes for nesting birds and hibernating critters) to justify its existence and be worthy of time and cash being spent on it.

When times are hard it is easy to understand skepticism, irritation and even mild anger, but art demands that we engage with what we are looking at and that we do have an opinion. It has the ability to make us see and think differently. Perhaps it is when times are hard that we need this most?

I love the way these trees appear to be floating.

The University of East Anglia, Norwich in miniature world in itself

I love the shapes these reeds and their reflections make  

Tiphanie Beeke, Claire Fletcher, Stephen Mackey and Beautiful Snowy Illustrations

Tiphanie Beeke, Claire Fletcher and Stephen Mackey Wonderful Illustrators!

Hello!

Hope you had a great weekend.

We have another snow day due to more in the night, so I have all the children at home. Later I will be walking Betty and chatting to a dear Wiltshire friend on the phone while I'm at it.

The weekend was quiet for us, although I did do some baking with mixed results. The gluten-free coffee cake was as stiff as a board-not great for moi. However, the gluten-full banana bread I made for the rest of the family is quite pleasing which is great for them. Along with a roast dinner yesterday and drop scones for tea last night and breakfast this morning, they're all doing very well indeed.

I spent the weekend searching, learning from and being excited by, other people's blogs and have been really excited by what I've seen including beautiful and touching poetry, embroidery, painting, crochet and photography. The open, honest sharing of life and experience has been really inspiring to read. I love that I can see other cultures, ideas, musings, raimblings and works of art all from my iPad.

This week I intend to get my Etsy shop up and running. Please note that this has been on my intentions list for quite sometime now so if it is achieved, I will be over the moon.

Anyway, last week I took some photographs of some of my favourite illustrators works and chose ones with snowy themes. The one I really wanted to share, Snow Day by Komako Sakai, is in a box somewhere between here and Wiltshire-still in storage I fear, along with quite a lot of other things that I need to track down today. Enjoy these pictures though, from the very talented
Stephen Mackey, Tiphanie Beeke and Claire Fletcher. I love flicking through children's books with a nice cup of strong coffee.

 Stephen Mackey's Miki-I bought this for myself on my 40th Birthday after taking tea at The Ritz

Angela McAllister and Tiphanie Beeke's Brave Bitsy and the Bear, dedicated to my daughter Safi

 Tiphanie Beeke's sad lonely piggy in Ian Whybrow's The Snow friends

I love Claire Fletcher's paintings. This one is particularly lovely and is from a joint venture with Jools Oliver (yes, Jamie's wife) called The Adventures of Dotty and Bluebell.

Have a great Monday!

From Red Riding to Narnia

Happy weekend!

Wow! What a beautiful week it has been. After bravely, or stupidly taking my daughters to school on the first snowy day we had, which resulted in a slightly hair raising drive along country lanes in near blizzard conditions, I opted to keep them home for the rest of the week.

I've spent my time walking; taking photos; being thoroughly inspired by stunning snowy scenes; trying out new gluten-free cake recipes; researching blogging; reading; discovering blogs I want to follow;  and taking the girls sledging. I've also been planning future painting projects that I hope to crack on with very soon.

Here are some photos of the scenes that have unfolded around me as I've walked. The first one is of a very strange cloud formation that crept across the sky in a very haunting and strange manner. Huge tendrils, much like fingers reached down to the land. I guess it was the snow falling but it was like a huge wave and quite erie.

Not sure what I'll be doing this weekend although we may visit Norwich later if we can face it and will definitely be out with the dogs and children later too.

Oh, and a huge thank you to John Davy-BizNetworkGuy for spending hours sharing his blogging knowledge with me, it was a great help. There's a link to his blog on here. Happy reading!

Have a great weekend!

Red Riding Hood

When I posted the photographs of my daughter in the snow some people thought, as I myself did, that she looked like Red Riding Hood. I couple of years ago I painted this very character and thought I'd post those pictures this morning, so here they are, the first of my paintings to be included on this blog.

Beneath them is a charcoal drawing of a fox playing in the snow. I love working in charcoal and have used it a lot in recent months. I am often inspired by the author/illustrator Alexis deacon (Slow Loris, Beegu and others) and love his cover for Soonchild that I recently bought as a present for someone dear to me. What a talent! Alexis I mean, not me!

Another Snowy Day in Norfolk

Well, its another beautiful snowy day and luckily my new wellies arrived. Took dogs for a short walk as my daughter was cold, but it was very lovely all the same. No impressive wildlife sightings though. Hoping to go out with the dogs again in a bit when the children have had enough of sledging.

Took some beautiful photographs and I'm feeling quite inspired. I'll be getting my charcoal and paints out as soon as the children are back to school.

What a great day to start my blog....

What a great day to start writing my blog. We had snow last night and awoke to a winter wonderland. There had been much anticipation about the white stuff so everyone was very excited.

After a slow drive to school I took my dogs on a long walk on this perfect winter's morning. Through woods, "Christmas tree Forest" and water meadows where I saw a Woodcock, which I think is quite a rare bird to see anyway, I was excited to see him!

I love nature and taking photographs while I'm walking Betty-my three year old English Pointer and Flossie my five year old Springer Spaniel. The countryside and wildlife inspire me, and the photographs help me towards creating paintings and drawings. Soon my Etsy shop Walking with Betty- see a theme emerging?! will open. My work-paintings, drawings and prints will be available on there. I work mainly in charcoal, graphite and acrylic paint with other materials like oil and soft pastels creeping in there too.

Today's walk took me through Swardeston village in Norfolk, a village not far from where I live. There was snowman in the centre of the cricket green,  and hungry ducks on the pond. Tomorrow I will go armed with food.....

Above are some photos of the beautiful countryside I walked in today and meet Betty and Flossie too!