Bleak House

We walked around Leadburn Community Woods that on a day like today feels like the end of the earth, away from it all and windswept, derelict and bleak. Great views of the Pentlands though and the old building is a source for interesting graffiti 

Red Admiral Butterfly on Buddleia

Stencilgirl® August 2019 Project

My project for Stencilgirl® this month was inspired by a poem by Ben Okri. I printed it out quite some time ago and it has been living on my work desk every since, with me re-reading it occasionally. The words touched me deeply. Then a few weeks ago I saw it again this time accompanying a photograph on Blipfoto. I made me think I wanted to do something to make it into a permanent reminder to myself and this is my first attempt to do so, starting with the first two lines.

I, like most of you I suspect, am always on the lookout for the “perfect” sketchbook and during the search have acquired so many that I very much doubt I will be able to fill them in my lifetime but that doesn’t seem to stop me buying more. And I think I have now discovered one that is as close to perfect as it’s going to get. They are the journals by www.artbymarlene.nl  for StudioLight. The one I’m using here is the big version at 8 x 11.3/4” and it has the most wonderful thick paper. It is also ring bound so you can take the pages out to work on them separately.  My plan is to fill this journal with my illustrations of Ben Okri’s words. 

This page has the first few lines: “As clouds pass above our heads, so time passes through our lives. It also features a vintage German Christmas card.  You will be getting more lines as part of future projects. You can find the full step by step tutorial for this page on the Stencilgirl® Talk website. 

Another dahlia

Full Tilt

Fungi in the Forest

Collage 33

We have arrived at Collage 33 which is yet again composed in an 5 x 8" Moleskine journal and made with images from a variety of sources, mainly magazines. It does of course feature Ophelia accompanied by an Irish postage stamp. The faces on the bottom of the image are by Madge Gill's Crowd of Faces. They too came from a magazine and were used to publicise the upcoming  Art and Spirit: Visions of Wonder Exhibition at the College of Psychic Studies, South Kensington, London 11-20 August 2019. They made me fall in love with her work. Check out the link!
The text comes from last year's Flow magazine's calendar and is a quotation by the American writer Colleen Hoover