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thinking they ll last a little longer yet it s hard to believe we are in the throes of christmas lunches although with just over a week to the winter solstice it has started to get dark here by 4pm and the days are most definitely shorter but it s been a magnificent autumn this year and i want it to continue for a bit longer please posted by lac emp 2020 at 12 12 16 4 comments sunday 4 december 2016 doing lots showing little there s little point in making apologies for the lack of blogging because it has only crossed my mind occasionally throughout this autumn hasn t it been a glorious one here there s been lots of walking lots of collecting things on those walks and plenty of drawing and prints ensuing i have been playing around with drypoint print ideas and working on a few book ideas one all about beetles and the other looking at childhood memories of my home town of bristol it involves learning to sew with my mum and my great aunt lilla and the books are both so different that i am really enjoying working between the two ideas in tandem using some of my imagery from old patterns bought by my aunt in the old bristol department stores of lewis s and jones s i went up to bristol yesterday and spent the day learning to expose my photos and create screenprints from them i did a fantastic one day course with an artist named simon tozer who was really generous with his time and expertise the sewing ideas are all part of the book idea but i also produced a two screen a4 print from a photo i took of some of my batsford books these great little books were published in the 60 s and 70 s and have some unbeatable titles some of them have become very collectable and are no longer a second hand bargain price but others are still there for pennies online and the graphics and the ideas are as valid now as they were 40 years ago do look out for them i think screenprinting is now firmly another of my favourite things but it s that time of year to prepare for something else but i m still not going to mention the c word i promise instead i m going to concentrate on the things i intend to do in 2017 such as finish those beetle and sewing books and prepare for delivering more workshops i shall be teaching another book workshop at the yard artspace in march and do take a look at sue s programme for 2017 as she has managed to lure sarah morpeth to cheltenham for a weekend of papercutting and bookmaking which should be really exciting before that i start a five week mixed media collage course locally which will be five individual all day workshops run fortnightly through january to march can t wait to see that happen and i am preparing samples daily for it this is a course i ve devised from scratch so i hope it goes well i m also working on some prints for a postcard print exchange i ve been invited to join there are six of us but i m the only one in the northern hemisphere everyone else is in australia and i am really excited about taking part given posting times and drying times i am already working on my first set of prints which has to be posted in january no reveals as i cannot spill the beans in advance but when the time is right with the days so busy and posting so infrequent it may well be that it is time to shut the door on the blog instagram is beckoning me and i feel like it might suit my needs who knows but if i decide to take the plunge i ll let you know posted by lac emp 2020 at 4 12 16 4 comments sunday 28 august 2016 late summer garden we had a day out yesterday popping down to somerset to catch an exhibition at lytes cary manor all part of somerset art weeks this year called herbarium there are four sculpture installations around the gardens inspired by henry lyte a previous owner of the manor who translated one of the first herbal remedies manuals in 1578 and dedicated it to elizabeth 1 the national trust website describes lytes cary as a hidden gem a timeless little world to reflect and enjoy and it certainly lived up to its billing this is a wonderfully intimate house surrounded by a beautiful garden restored in the early 20th century by the jenner family after the house fell into disrepair it feels like you re visiting someone s small patch of heaven and we came away with lots of notes about plants and ideas for borders and pots next year i loved the topiary in front of the house twelve yews the apostles clipped into shape and acting like sentinels down that path which is cracked and crazed and full of so many textures that i spent a lot of my time looking down at my feet exclaiming that every one was like a landscape design needless to say there are many many photos of the paving that i am not boring you with the first installation outside of these carved seats and orbs by alison crowther was perfectly suited to their setting but i noticed these small owls carved into a roof space and kept going back to stare at them before being chivvied along and reminded that there was a lot more to see every turn brought more plant combinations into view and i cannot recommend a visit to lytes cary highly enough so much so that we are seriously considering a return visit soon i did not expect the place to have such an effect on me as i am not given to fancy but i truly found it to be very special something i was hoping i would also feel at the second place on our itinerary for the day lots has been written about the field designed by piet oudolf for the hauser and wirth gallery in bruton and having seen it on television in its first year i was intrigued to see how it was developing well the answer is rather wonderfully as it happens i think we struck lucky with the day we picked it was warm and slightly breezy so all those signature grasses favoured by mr oudolf wafted and shook in the wind and caught the late afternoon light to perfection so many of the 26 000 perennial plants have turned to seedheads already this year but the late season colour offered by anemones echinaceas asters and heleniums to complement them alongside all those grasses is to die for it is so worth a visit and all for the price of a donation to the local museum a treat of course i had to buy a copy of the planting plan to see which of the 115 planted varieties went next to each other along with the long list of plant associations from lytes cary we did nothing but talk plants and gardening all the way home come to think of it i was doing all the talking and planning and the head gardener was probably totting up the man hours we had spent so much of the day pointing at plants and saying we already have that and we have that too but after visiting these two inspiring gardens we realise now like that well known morecambe and wise sketch that we have all the right plants but not necessarily in the right order now the question is whether to redesign here and expend lots of energy on a garden we may leave within a couple of years or keep the ideas ready for a blank canvas in the future exciting times are ahead of us posted by lac emp 2020 at 28 8 16 6 comments postscript i had a day in hay on wye yesterday selling two large book collections rather than buying any more sadly but the need to de clutter before we ever move house again is pressing it was so lovely to then come home and find comments on yesterday s blog post from three of my fellow postman s knock collage chums and be reminded of a wonderful summer of play back in 2011 where did those five years go girls made me want to do it all over again but before they start to panic that i might suggest it and while it is uppermost in my mind i just wanted to let people know that one of our other postman s knock friends has written a book that will be published in the autumn anyone who remembers jane s blog will know her thoroughness and all recipients of her artwork know her attention her detail she will have done her research for this book meticulously so i have pre ordered my copy and hope it becomes a best seller posted by lac emp 2020 at 28 8 16 1 comment saturday 27 august 2016 with a plan in mind one day in early summer i was clearing my desk out and found a pack of 12 watercolour postcards that i had bought and not used it was only a couple of days after a meeting to discuss my lifelong learning classes for 2016 2017 and i d agreed to trial a 5 day mixed media collage course each one being like a day workshop and running fortnightly up to the end of term so i had an idea to use the cards to try out different collage techniques and asked my friend sheila if she fancied a bit of summer fun where i d give her half of the cards and we d then exchange them via the postman she was up for it but works a bit slower than me so whilst i ve now posted all of mine i m still waiting for all 6 of hers to wing my way as ever i set myself the parameter that everything i used had to be within arms reach in my little cubbyhole that i laughingly call the office it certainly challenges the mind when you limit yourself and when i look at all six of them together i wonder if anyone would see the same hand in them all but they illustrate some of the ideas i expect to be teaching this autumn and sheila will be bringing them to class to be discussed and dissected by my ever faithful group who willingly come to everything i deliver i hope the fun i had with these small pieces translates over to the bigger picture posted by lac emp 2020 at 27 8 16 5 comments thursday 4 august 2016 if at first every time my chum sue phones me her opening line when i answer the phone is usually why aren t you in that shed working well i was up there before i went to oxford for a few days getting on with preparation of an aluminium plate for some saline etching a post on jac s blog a couple of weeks ago reminded me of an image i d put together 18 months ago from photos of a mistle thrush in the garden with some text i fiddled about with in photoshop jac had been using the gum arabic transfer medium for getting her image on to a plate prior to etching and i decided to pull my finger out and do mine too after all this time so the day before i headed off to my course i took my photocopies inked them up and tried to get them centred on an 8x6 aluminium plate easier said than done but i was happy enough with one attempt to give it a try i didn t heat the plate up to dry it out just left it in the window until my return of course by then six days had passed and the ink was rock hard and although it etched well enough i couldn t get the original background ink off the plate and as i d used burnt umber the wiping was hardly a roaring success as all these proofs on the shed wall testify to i was printing with payne s grey and could not see where i d wiped and where i hadn t during a phone call this week sue suggested trying to get the ink off with brasso and then my husband suggested tcut which was a success why didn t i think of that so i cleaned it and then i printed it again trying a couple of two plate options as well i can see all the things that are wrong with it but i like the image so i m going to sharpen it up try to eliminate the errors and do it all over again and whilst i had some left over ink on the slab i printed a collagraph that i made last year and for some reason never got around to printing its about 8 inches square and i think i like it in the grey black so might frame that one and see what it looks like in different orientations i ve spent two days in that shed this week doing all this and i wonder why i don t have more to show for the time but it s not important sometimes i need to remind myself that it is all about doing the work and who knows what will come out of it i have so many ideas in my head at the moment that trying to remember them and filter out the wheat from the chaff is a real challenge but onwards ever onwards eh posted by lac emp 2020 at 4 8 16 8 comments saturday 30 july 2016 summer school i ve been away for a few days this week at the annual oxford summer school i found out about it last year but far too late to get on the course i wanted so as soon as the brochure landed on the mat this time around i was booked on experimental drawing with claire christie sadler not only is this lady a fantastic artist she is a great teacher too there were 12 of us in the group and it has been one of those workshops when everything was right the summer school was buzzing with all the different classes going on and everyone in the room just got what claire was encouraging us to do so we cracked on with trying out lots of materials and then did painting rubbing ripping sanding etc to either verbal or musical stimuli it was huge fun and i will definitely be going again such a well organised and diverse event whilst i have been quiet here in the online world i have been busy this summer and now have even more ideas percolating for the next month or so aside from a family wedding august is commitment free so i intend to carry on playing and just doing the work to see what evolves at the end of it posted by lac emp 2020 at 30 7 16 2 comments thursday 9 june 2016 what goes around comes around it s a couple of years since i wrote a blog post highlighting the book in the left of the picture above this used a fabulous childrens encyclopaedia that i found to make a book which is either described as a carousel book or a star tunnel accordion every time i put it on the timetable to teach events conspired to remove it but its turn has finally come this week so you can imagine the dismay when i tried to find my star sample and couldn t find it anywhere now many years of bookmaking leads to lots of crates of samples but it was conspicuous by its absence despite many searches i was bereft thinking i d left it in a venue on display somewhere so i asked my husband to search for it and he found it in the first box he looked into after passing through quite a few hands it had lost its ties and needed a bit of tlc so i have repaired it and fallen in love with it all over again it is one book i could never give away despite its flaws and i am excited to teach it on friday and see what my group come up with for content because i thought my sample was lost i quickly made a couple more i usually have blank books in the various making stages for my workshops but always like to have one special one fully formed for ideas and discussion now i have three and lots of ideas for a few more so i am making a couple more samples today but wanted to give a sneak preview of my two new samples i always try to use up materials that are to hand so one is using silvered card which creates a great mirrored effect i ve had this stuff for years and can t believe how long it has taken me to use it effectively so it will now line up with my new andy pandy book made on a whim after a chance comment by a friend the other day about the tv of our childhood here in the uk they are time consuming books to make but can look great with a good idea andy has now joined my encyclopaed...