Focus On Life #26 and the Tate Modern

This week for the Focus on Life challenge over at the Studio Sublime, we were given a free choice to photograph something we had focused on this week.  For me it had to be my visit to the Tate Modern in London.  I had a wonderful time wandering through the galleries and photographing all the amazing art that took my eye.

Lunch at the Tate cafe - and what a wonderful view of St Paul's Cathedral from the cafe balcony!  

I loved these pieces of work - clockwise from top left:

Chen Zhen, Eileen Agar, Pino Pascali and Mark Rothko.

Summer Of Color Week 3 and ICAD

This week over at the Summer of Color the challenge was to work with purple and lime green.  My immediate thought was the Iris and the garden, and I decided to do a series of index cards based on garden design and it's history - a subject I love and keep going back to.  The index cards are for the ICAD challenge over at Daisy Yellow.   

Some close-up shots of the cards

Summer of Color week 2 and ICAD

For this week over at Summer of Color the colour scheme is hot pink and orange.  I decided to combine this challenge with the index-card-a-day challenge at Daisy Yellow.  

I ended up doing six cards based on a coral theme - I had to work hard at not making them red as that is the colour I had been using for my coral based work a few weeks ago.

I used gelli prints for the backgrounds and prepared a selection of cards ready to use each day with the backgrounds already glued on.  The gelli prints looked too dark against the buff background so I painted the cards cream.  I then spent about half an hour a day machine stitching, gluing and hand sewing them.

Some close-up shots

Focus On Life #25

I found this weeks challenge quite hard - Sally at Studio Sublime asked us to take a photo that represented who I am, and come up with one positive word that describes me.

 The last few months have been quite difficult for me, but I am coming out of it slowly, and this made me realise I am a lot of good things: a wife, sister, aunt, niece, cousin, friend, artist, tutor... and I am lucky enough to be able to live in my own home, doing the things I love - creating in my studio, photographing my garden, baking, socialising.....! 

So this week "I am ME - and I very much appreciate it!"

I saved this little cabinet from the local tip years ago - it used to hold scientific scales - anyone old enough to remember them from school days?   I sanded and waxed the wood, and the hubs fitted a glass shelf in it.  It lives in my bedroom and holds all my precious bits.  It represents ME!

A prayer book given on my Christening, a monkey egg cup from my dad because as a child I used to have an imaginary friend called Monkey Boy, a crystal from a friend, an invitation to my degree show, the pretty heart my sister gave me for my wedding last year, a little turtle from my mum when we were on a girls holiday in Austria, my Dad's RAF button,  my great-grandmothers silver thimble..... and so on, and so on - hope you haven't nodded off!

WOYWW #211 and ICAD

  I would like to say a big thank you to Tamara at To Bee Studio who was so kind and complimentary when mentioning me on her blog last week.   Tamara's work is beautifully delicate and has a wonderful vintage feel to it - I would definitely recommend a visit to her blog!

On my desk at the moment are this weeks index cards for ICAD over at Daisy Yellow.  The challenge is to decorate an index card every day for the 6 weeks of the challenge - or in my case 'nearly' every day, as I only managed 6 and not 7 this week! 

I used left over scraps of gelli prints for the backgrounds and added machine stitching, vintage lace, glass beads and scraps.  I thought the flower head (bottom left) looked rather like a pin cushion so I added some tiny little brass pins that I found in my lace-making equipment.   I must also point out that the lace butterfly cut out of a strip of lace was an idea I took directly from the wonderfully talented Terri at art-life-rust, as last week she cut a butterfly out of her strip of lace!  Hope you don't mind Terri - yours was so much bigger and better!

Why not hop over to WOYWW and have a snoop at other people's work desks - it's great fun! 

Focus On Life #24

This week's prompt for the Focus On Life challenge over at The Studio Sublime is green. 

This was taken in the garden and I used an Eva Ricci texture on it.

I wasn't sure if this worked or not, but it's growing on me - I quite like that shade of green with the brownish sepia tones.

This is the large platter that lives in my kitchen with the fruit on it - and the occasional good-looking veg! 

 The smaller bowl is from Anthropologie and I love it - I do tend to buy more lemons and limes than I can get through because they look so good in it!

Summer of Colour - Week 1

   This week's colour prompt for this year's new Summer of Colour was Citron Green and Turquoise.   For inspiration I played about with gelli printing using just those two colours, and I then used a couple of the prints for the background.  I also used a stamp I carved of a fern leaf, and added stencilled dots and shapes.   

Some detail shots - showing the 3D butterfly, and details of the background gelli prints.

The two colours haven't quite gelled for me in this mosaic, but I thought I'd include it anyway as I'd done the work on it!   The cat was made by my mum who loved working in clay, the butterfly wing and beetle are from my collection of dead things - isn't he gorgeous!  And as you can see from the Alchemella Mollis in the centre, we've been having a lot of rain! 

WOYWW and ICAD

For WOYWW this week my desk is covered in gelli prints I made for the new Summer of Colour 2013.  The colour theme for this week is Citron green and Turquoise.  I didn't know where to begin on this so I've printed some backgrounds and started playing - I thought that might be a good way to find a starting point - and I'll see where I end up!   

Also this week I have been taking part in the new Index Card a Day challenge (ICAD), over at Daisy Yellow.

My idea for the cards started with this gorgeous fern that I planted in the garden last summer while in the throws of the Summer of Colour 2012 - it helped feed my obsession with pollen and spores!

  

It has settled in to the garden beautifully and is looking very lush and quite spectacular - so of course it had to be photographed!  I used the 'design' of it to hand carve a stamp, which became the basis for the 7 index cards. 

Focus On Life #23

This weeks photographic prompt for Focus on Life over at the Studio Sublime was 'Typography'.  I LOVE books - I have books pretty much in every room of the house, from brand-new to very, very old!  I quite often buy books simply because I am drawn to the title - which can lead to disappointment or sometimes an amazingly good read if lucky!  Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible has to be one of my all time favourite books - the cover is delicately plain yet appealing, with gold embossing and a simple, intriguing title.  I am also drawn to the beautiful titles of Gail Tsukiyama's books - a wonderful author, she is definitely another favourite - who could resist titles such as the Language of Threads and Dreaming Water!

   I am sure I will never be a Kindle kind of girl - I often just hold my books, and rub my hands over the cover and drink in the beauty and texture of the book cover - it is a huge part of the enjoyment of reading a good book!

WOYWW #209

I don't have much on my desk to show this week so I thought I would take a photo of the dish that has water, sponges and pins always handy - and of course the stuff that shouldn't be there, like an necklace that needs mending and some corkboard pins awaiting a new corkboard!  There is nothing like taking a photo of your desk to show just how much your water pot needs cleaning - I really hadn't noticed how messy it was until I saw the photo!

I had to include a close-up of my favourite mug from Anthropologie and my treasured vintage style pincushion.  

If you want to see what's on other people's desks this week why not pop over to WOYWW and have a snoop.

Focus on Life Challenge - Food

Over at the fabulous Studio Sublime is a weekly photographic challenge that I have recently found -  and this weeks prompt for a photo is 'food'.  So I used that as the perfect excuse to buy this delicious home-made Dorset Apple Cake from a local stall.

I loved the way it was wrapped, with the pretty mint green ribbon - it almost looked too good to eat - but not quite!

I am also linking up with Mary over at Mosaic Monday.