Winchester Cathedral

On a recent trip to Winchester I decided to 'do' the Cathedral - armed with my camera I had a wonderful couple of hours wandering around enjoying the colours and sculpture, and listening to the choir practicing for a wedding that was happening later in the day - quite magical.

Down in the crypt is this amazing Anthony Gormley statue of a man contemplating the water in his cupped hands - it really is quite beautiful, and it looks even more stunning in the flood water that occurs during the rainy months!

I am linking up with Mary over at Mosaic Monday and Sally over at Blue Monday this week.

Palace House at Beaulieu

Although we only live a stones throw from Beaulieu we haven't visited the Motor Museum and Palace House for many years, despite it being right on our doorstep.  So at Easter we decided to have a day out to celebrate the hubs birthday!  

 I'm afraid the cars, James Bond stuff and Top Gear exhibition didn't really grab me too much, although it kept my Other Half happy!  

However, Palace House was beautiful - I was quite stunned by these fabulous ceilings.  

I'm sharing these Mosaics with Mosaic Monday 

Color This Quote

For this months Color This Quote challenge over at Artists in Blogland, the quote to inspire us was:

'Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else' 
 Judy Garland

I used Adirondack Colour Wash inks, chalk pastels, and a stencil/mask from The Crafters Workshop.  I used an old Stampers Anonymous rubber stamp as I felt the words 'Aspire, Astonish, Amaze' really fitted in to this months theme, and I summarized the quote in keeping with the simplicity of the image - I didn't want it too 'wordy'.   I have long had a love affair with the colour combination orange and purple, and although this was going to be aqua and brown originally, I am quite pleased that in some totally inexplicable way it turned into orange and purple!

Marbles

I am changing my house over from autumn/winter decor to spring/summer decor at the moment and one of the items that has come out of winter hibernation is this little wooden bowl.  It was made for us by my cousin-in-law who is a wood-turner in his spare time and  he creates beautiful and tactile pieces.  I have been looking for just the right thing to go in it and after quite a lot of searching I found these old antique marbles.

I think they look perfect in the bowl and really do it justice.

I am linking up with Mary over at Mosaic Monday and Sally over at Blue Monday.  Just in case you are querying what's blue about my photos, the bag of marbles contained one special little blue one - you can see it in the bottom mosaic! 

WOYWW and Gelli Printing

At last, after a long period of inactivity I finally have something happening on my work desk, so I decided to join in with WOYWW - why not pop over and see what other people have been up to!

I got my gelli plate out, did some printing, and had a fun afternoon messing about with paint!  I chose a colour scheme loosely based on the two little wooden hearts in the photo - Paynes grey and Neutral grey, Naples Yellow, Burnt Sienna and Portrait Pink - I 'm quite pleased at how they work together.   

The sketchbook page is made up of the leftover bits of prints - I think they show the colour palette quite well.

Some close-up shots of what I have been doing with the gelli prints in my sketchbook.

An almost finished page - it needs something else but not sure what!