Illustration Friday - Fresh

I was after a fresh approach to fresh...

This grew out of pen and watercolour but then got seriously mangled in a paint program.

Dining room - grubby walls?

Do these walls look grubby to you? That's what the agent we rented from claimed... But notice the horrible purple patch - something he'd promised to paint over in June 2004. This photo was taken 7 August 2005.

Fully maintained gardens?

Would you consider these well-maintained? This was the state of the gardens of the cottage we were renting from April 2004 - August 2005. They were advertised as fully maintained.

Collage from my new journal

These are 3 details from my first double-spread of collage in my new journal.


And this is another which I may yet work on further:

New blank journal

I felt so inspired by these journals that I made a blank journal today. I found various suggestions for how to make them but gave glue a miss and used gaffer tape instead which I've covered in prettier sticky paper. The finished journal's pages are not quite 11" x just over 15". So a double page spread is almost 22" x 15" ish.

Tortoise

I've been playing with the gimp...

Illustration Friday - E's Cape

Collage, and anyone who thinks this is a cop out - no, its an escape...

Wine

The first non-sparkling wine we've both liked.
The label says:

GROWN AND PRODUCED IN THE VINEYARDS OF THE INYCON ESTATE



INYCON
INZOLIA
Indicazione Geografica Tipica
BIANCO DI SCILIA
2004

Got this from Bottom's Up last week on their 3 for 2 (cheapest free) deal.

Illustration Friday - Depth

My first contribution to Illustation Friday.

Another synchronicity

Just a small one, again whilst reading Staying at Daisy's. Just as I was reading about someone recalling a dream, my darling suddenly started telling me all about his dream. Very different content so no deeper than that.

Lunch in Cafe Neo

My friend suggested Cafe Neo for lunch today and it was great - the chicken mayo panini, strawberry milkshake and hot chocolate were yummy!

She's looking great too having had her colours done recently and now I'm wondering about splashing out:

http://www.inspiredimage.co.uk/

Cops and Robbers

One of the other exciting things that happened whilst we were in Blueboys Cottage was the day that there was a police chase through our garden!

What's more a camera was dropped in our rhubarb patch.

Later accomplices returned looking for the camera which had already been taken away by the police.

It was just a single-use film camera. I've often wondered what those pictures might have contained...

As I said before, so much for sleepy Cotswolds...

Zara Phillips

I just googled "Minchinhampton Blueboys" and was surprised to find that so many of the results were about Zara Phillips! She certainly was not to be seen on Blueboys corner, or if she was I missed her. The nearest I got was signing for a packet one day and noticing that she was next on the list!

I've also just looked at a page all about Minchinhampton which claims that it is the least accessible of the Cotswold towns - why then do so many cars and lorries go through it on their way to Stroud?

They don't go down the main street but they do whiz (despite the 40 mph speed limit and the cows) over the common and through the Blue Boys end of Minch.

Jill Mansell

I've read quite a few of Jill Mansell's books, I like the fact that she knows Bristol and the Cotswolds so her local details, even when ascribed to fictional places, are good and also familiar to me. But she does keep on making out that Costwold villages are all wonderful. After 16 months in Minchinhampton (technically a town but no larger than a village) I haven't got the same rosy tinted view that she portrays.

Minchinhampton's Cirencester Road is very busy and noisy. The cows roam over the common and the Cirencester Road in the summer months but this leads to angry motorists beeping. Which has no effect whatsoever on the cows who just stand there and stare! But of course it wakes up anyone still trying to sleep at 6.30 am....

And later at night Blueboys Corner seems to attract all the local yobs.

Not quite the sleepy Cotswold village picture drawn in Jill Mansell's books!

Synchronicity - Staying at Daisy's

I love synchronicities. One of the reasons I read fiction is that this often brings up synchronicities.

One of my friends rang yesterday to say that she had a brand new niece of the name of Daisy. So I wasn't surprised when I looked at my pile of books to see that the next one I was planning on reading (rereading actually) was "Staying at Daisy's" by Jill Mansell.

But that's not the interesting synchronicity. I was just reading chapter 13 where Maggie and Hector are interrupted by the doorbell ringing and as my eyes reached "Rrrrrinnnnngggg" - my own door bell went - I almost jumped out of my skin! When I got to the end of this chapter I was pulled up short again with:

"It was a b****y wonder she had any hair left, Maggie thought sourly as she signed on the dotted line."

I've removed the hair-pulling pictures that I'd put up - I decided I didn't need reminding...

Do such synchronicities mean anything? Probably not. Just interesting. And from now on I'll blog them! (How odd the spell checker didn't have "blog" in it!)

Friday's lunch

On Friday we went to the Primrose Cafe in Clifton. This has been one of our favourite cafes. He was as satisfied as usual. But I was not.

They do sandwiches and things along with 3 salads. The sandwich part was great but
I don't know what they are adding to their salads - maybe something with olives in? I used to love olives then a little over a year ago I suddenly went off them, and not just off but to the point where the smell made me nauseous! At first I thought I must be pregnant but I wasn't and it carried on. I'm not that bad any more but I really don't like them. Its funny but olive oil is still fine!

Sunday Brunch

We went out for brunch and tried a cafe that is "under new management" on the Gloucester Road.

He had a couple of "pain au chocolat" but they were served cold - yuk! I had the "full English" with scrambled egg (not fried), tomato (not beans), white toast (not brown) and hot chocolate (neither the tea nor the coffee). This didn't look anything special but tasted good. I was glad I'd gone for a hot breakfast; yesterday the weather was on the cool side.

We are unlikely to go back to give them another go because the seats were very uncomfortable - made from metal and with tiny pads that did not cover the whole seat. They do have leather sofas and coffee tables - they looked like they'd be more comfortable to sit in but inconvenient for eating a knife and fork type meal. Maybe I'll go back and have just a hot chocolate and try the sofas out.

Dish of the day

Treasure and maps

Last night we watched the Map Man (Mon 5 Sep, 8:00 pm - 8:30 pm BBC 2) cycle around the lake district on a 70 year old bike, using a 100 year old cycling map. It got me thinking about maps and what a great doll's skin one could make based on a map. I'm in the throws of designing a doll after realising that yesterdays images were the start of one. This picture is of my first doll made last year using the simplest pattern in Creative Cloth Doll Making (us or uk). In October I'm booked on a course run by Patti Medaris Culea to improve my doll making skills.

I looked for some good historical maps on the web but the images I've found are too poor to read clearly. But I did find a good site with ideas for making treasure maps with/for children.

Long ago I made maps by using footprints in washable non-toxic paints on interesting papers. Once dry I added in contours etc. in permanent black ink.

Treasure maps and buried treasure are exciting. What is it that is such fun about it? Solving the puzzle, digging for treasure, or what? The very idea that there are treasures to be found and then that one might have a (secret) map to it; this seems to me to be behind lots of human activities from science to religion...

Books I read in August - part 1

I read quite a few books in August. Here are some short reviews of them. I've also included links to amazon.com and amazon.co.uk for each, just in case I don't actually put you off reading them! See my website for my amazon bookshop proper though its not currently in a very good shape :-( only the knitting section is half-way done.

Laptop of the Gods (uk or us) - on the uk site its available for 1p plus £2.75 postage and packing - save your money! I returned my copy to the charity shop. But I did read it first. I like the general idea; the Greek/Roman Gods today but I found the whole concept of God as an operating system left too much room for Deus ex machina!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (uk or us). I found this very depressing. I won't give a spoiler here but I wish I hadn't read it. I think JK was expecting the Tories to win the 2005 UK elections, otherwise why the hint of vampirism in the new minister for magic.... At least Harry seems to have got over the totally unable-to-communicate-teen-stage he was in throughout the previous book (uk or us).

Cause Celeb by Helen Fielding (uk or us). This was v.g.! The life of a volunteer in Africa has never appealed to me before but after reading this I could understand how Africa gets into people's blood. She wrote this before Bridget Jones's Diaries (uk or us). And whilst I'm on Helen Fiedling I was recently lent Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination [UNABRIDGED] (Audio CD) (us only - you can get it on tape in the uk) which I enjoyed listening to - worth borrowing!

Drawing on the imagination

Click on any picture to see a larger version.
Today I drew. First I picked some images and mangled them a bit; on paper as a collage and then in the gimp.

I went on to make this drawing. I wasn't sure whether to stop with the first version or go on to the second, so using the magic of photography I got both.

Which do you prefer?

If you don't like either that doesn't matter, its those people who are drawn to one or the other whose opinion's I'm seeking on this occasion!!!

Title: Shadow Boxing

Hello from me

Hello, hello wherever you are
Hello, hello whomever you be

The rite of lines along the right lines and
aligned
right

or left

Backblog

This is an image I made recently at CFDG: Context-Free Design Grammar. I haven't done any programming in years but this was quite easy to get the hang of. And I produced lots of images that I liked too. You can see more of them in their gallery.