One of my favourite shells .....edm 207

I have lots of shells which I have collected over many years. If I was on holiday I would bring them home off the beach. In my suitcase all the shoes would be packed full of tissue wrapped specimens. Then many were bought from shell shops. When I was first married our bathroom window was full of my shells. Our bathroom now has mainly starfish and a few shells on display. A large glass container in the kitchen window is crammed full of my beach finds. I still can't resist buying new shells, they have such wonderful colours, shapes and patterns. I buy them to draw but never quite get around to doing it. I know where all my shells come from.
I have a chocolate box full of shells found on my 50th birthday, the chocolates were a present and we were in Madeira at the time. Then I found a shop with cabinets full of unusual shells for sale. I kept going back to see them all.
The shell I have posted for the edm challenge was bought from out of the cabinets and then painted while I was at Madeira. I love it for the maroon colours, one of my favourites. I love it for its simplicity and yet it is so beautifully patterned. And of course for the memories that this little shell brings flooding back.
It is painted in watercolour paints. Hope you like it too.

Helicopters

Since I was a child we have always called these sycamore seeds helicopters. They twirl around as they fall through the sky. The ones I usually collect are from the sycamore tree but I realise they are part of the maple family. They come in many different sizes, shapes and variations. Usually they are a double helicopter, sometimes I can find three together. They generally grow in clumps on the tree and fall in pairs which split to give the single seed.
I have many detailed drawings of them in different stages of their life, as they become thinner and very delicate and a sort of skeleton like the leaves. And on my artcard where I put 30 helicopters with three red berries found together in the snowdrop orchard in January. I brought them home, placed them on my paper to look at and thought they would make a great drawing.

Skeleton leaves

It is really cold and frosty here. There is nothing left in the hedgerows and verges except a few pale bleached seedheads and lots of empty snail shells. It is the time of year when all the leaves are thin like tissue paper and slowly breaking down into small fragments.
There amongst the heaps of dead leaves I can find the beautiful skeleton leaves. They are stripped back to their tiny veins, the very thin delicate lace patterns of their structure now revealed. I collect them, carefully untangle them and press them to keep them like antique treasures, each one so precious.
As I draw the patterns I admire the beauty and think myself so lucky to have found this natural work of art. It is drawn in pencil, with a very sharp point, on A4 size paper. Press to see it larger.

Curling Leaf

A New Year, so I bought a new sketch book, with some ideas whizzing around in my head. I have been planning a drawing project for this coming year.
Meanwhile I have been brushing up on my drawing skills, by drawing acorns and oak leaves. I love using pencil, a sharpened point and a piece of paper, just observing and recording something I found. A moment in time captured, then months later you find that drawing, it evokes a memory of a walk, a place, a day out in the countryside.

This curling leaf is a favourite drawing of mine. I like the crisp shape and the way it curls around. We had been out for a walk and I had collected some leaves. I sat that evening drawing them. I loved the shadows cast from the curling leaf by the electric lamp. I think they make the drawing so much more interesting, the elegant shapes of the leaf and the delicate shadows.
I am going to do more pencil drawings in 2009 as I really enjoy using a pencil. Press the picture to see it close up.
Happy New Year to everyone.

Red Berries and Cotoneaster

It is grey and foggy. The ground is white with frost. I look out of my window and I can see the lovely red berries on the cotoneaster. The birds have eaten so many of them,  but that is why I grew them in the first place, to attract the birds and as a winter food for them.  I do love red berries and often include them in my drawings.
This drawing is perhaps a little unusual for me, it just kind of happened. I had broken off the branch and brought it indoors to draw. The little blue dish was already full of red berries and they just looked so nice together. At first I was using the dish to lean the branch against but then decided to include it. Blue and red always look so good together. I sat and drew it and then painted it with acrylic paints.  I did it last year at this time. It looks very seasonal and brightens up this gloomy day. Hope you like it.
Press picture for close up, you will see it as work in progress, not the finished one.

Peppered Moth

This moth came into my sisters house during a storm. It stayed for days as it seemed to like it in the sunshine in her sunroom and didn't seem to want to leave. She showed it to me and it was so beautiful I had to draw it. The spotted patterns are so lovely and it was fascinating observing the moth close up. I looked it up and found it is a Peppered Moth and that it has two versions. My light coloured wings with dark markings which lives in the countryside. Then the opposite one with dark coloured wings with light patterns which adapted to live in the town, in the days of sooty black buildings. My light coloured moth likes trees and is camouflaged so well on the tree bark. I used a fine ink pen and a little paint to make the wings slightly off white. My drawing measures about 6inches across. Like so many everyday things we don't see them close up, this was fascinating to look at and I did need to use a magnifying glass to get all the detail. Press picture for a close up.

Red Berries

Well autumn has arrived.  I love this time of the year as the hedgerows are full of red berries. Rose hips, hawthorn and mountain ash are all glowing red and each time I go for a walk I stop to gaze at them and then pick a small branch to draw.  Today the wind is so strong the berries will be blown off and the road will be littered with them.  I like the hawthorn berries and have a favourite tree where I pick them throughout autumn and winter.  They hang in little groups on the delicate stalks and each little branch has its own curved or twisted shape.  Over the months they change colour, from the bright red to a deeper bugundy colour. The green leaves change to dark brown and they have such a pretty shape. I am posting one of my little drawings of the hawthorn berries. I never grow tired of drawing them, they are so beautiful with their simple shapes. Hope you like them. Press picture for a closer look.

My display of natural finds.... Feathers

I have a huge collection of natural finds.  Feathers are one of my collections and I just can't resist picking them up when I see them. I find them on the sea shore, in the fields and on my walks.  One of my best finds was a lovely little blue striped feather which I found along one of the lanes in my village. It is a jays feather.   A letter arrived this week from my friend and she had popped a little striped feather in the envelope. It was from one of her hens, you see I always go around the field collecting nice feathers from her hens. See how people think about me, send me feathers , not flowers or chocolates....feathers.  I had a present off my little two year old friend, you guessed, "A feather for you to draw".  Then his five year old sister sent me a feather, found this for Eileen to draw.  Gifts of feathers are sent to me all the time, they see a feather and think of me! In the display cabinets at my exhibition this was one of the shelves, with some of my feathers displayed,  and two of my art cards, the six striped feathers and sycamore seeds with three red berries.  I was painting a red rosehip yesterday, another of my favourite things are bright red shiny berries.  Today I am just going to get started on a feather drawing for a present so I am looking through my feather collection to see which ones to draw. So many to chose from.
The three feathers are drawn with Derwent coloured pencils, three feathers collected from the sandy beach near me.
Please note.... I always wash my found feathers in soapy water to make sure they are clean before I draw them.

From little acorns

Last autumn I collected these acorns and leaves from a lovely old oak tree. I planted some of the acorns and have been watching them grow. The little oak trees have grown and have about four or five leaves and my lovely little oak leaves now measure about six inches high. It is going to be such fun watching them grow. I need to find a suitable place to plant when they start to grow bigger.
I love oak leaves and they are one of my favourite subjects along with the tiny acorns. I have lots of different drawings of oak leaves, some in paint and others in derwent coloured pencils and some detailed pencil drawings. Leaves and acorns all the same but different, each one has its own unique shape. And it still amazes me to think that a beautiful oak tree started off as one of those tiny acorns.