Happy New Year

I can hardly believe it is the last day of 2010. Looking back I have achieved quite a lot of different creative projects. My square book that I started on the first of January has many pages filled with my drawings. It is a visual diary of my year and each page is a record of objects I found. One night when I couldn't sleep I got up in the early hours and to pass the time flicked through the pages of this book. Each page holds not only the objects but the place, the day and the memories are captured. In the future I know this will remain the same.

My zigzag Oak book holds little images of the life cycle of the oak tree as it yields its harvest of acorns and the changing colours of the leaves. It still thrills me t0 hold a tiny acorn and know that a huge oak tree can grow from it. My own little acorn continues to grow into a larger tree each year.

Red berries remain a favourite subject and many other seeds, insects, leaves, feathers and shells. All these things so familiar to me and yet each year I am drawn to them. I love collecting and recording my finds.

Tomorrow I want to begin a new project, as I struggle to pick a theme, maybe I do not need to choose, it will choose me.

A very big thank you to all the people who leave such lovely comments. I really do appreciate reading them. May I wish you all A Happy New Year for 2011.
And may your little acorns grow into giant oaks. Love Millyx

Another frosty day

The village looks very pretty with a light covering of snow. On Sunday we wrapped up warm and went for a long walk along the frosty roads. The photograph is the view taken off the railway bridge, just down the hill below my house. The shore was all frosty and glistening and twinkling in the sunshine.
After our uphill walk through the snowy lanes we enjoyed the lovely views of the lakeland hills on this beautiful crystal clear day. The hedgerows are all bare except for the holly bushes with lots of red berries. I picked lots of different seed heads to record when I get the time. My favourite images were of the frosted oak leaves scattered every where, they looked so beautiful against the snow. Lots of fallen red berries were trapped in the frosty ground. The Hawthorn branches were still laden, large droplets of water dangling and sparkling from their red berries.
The rose hips had suffered, all soft and squashy and blackened with the cold. I managed to pick the two for my picture.
When we returned home I wandered in my garden and found the two oak leaves fallen off my little oak tree which I planted as an acorn about three years ago. And finally the little branch with the bright red berries also picked from my garden.
I sketched it in pencil on Sunday evening. Today I painted it using the five colours of acrylic paint and my number one sable brush . Hope you like it.
I am using my new laptop for the first time, so hope this works out. Thank you for the lovely comments, we still have the mouse, nicknamed him Woody.

The mouse in the house

Oh have we had some fun with this little fellow. An apple under the kitchen table was missing a huge portion and the ground surrounding it was covered in red mice confetti, he obviously doesn't like the skin. So we left the apple but placed our newly purchased humane mouse trap next to it. A peanut inside it, we know he eats them ....that is another tale, and we went to bed.
I happened to say to my husband that I might draw him if we manage to catch him. Next morning , excited husband rushes upstairs to say "we got him!". He had placed him in my tall glass vase with some apple pieces to keep him happy. The vase was my idea really, so I could see him and he could not escape. The mouse had leaped out of the trap as it was opened and into the kitchen sink so was a little wet ! I just loved him, grabbed a sketch book and set to recording him.
It is tricky sketching a moving subject but in the end he obliged and sat nicely with his pieces of apple.
We let him free outside in the coal and wood shed. Guess what......last night he had found his way back in, the trap is set ready for him. I think he likes it in our house best.
A big Thank you for all comments. Glad to hear others have had mice too. My laptop is serious, so maybe I might be lucky enough to get a new one for my birthday next week...hint hint to someone who might be reading this.
Hope you like our pet house mouse. He is actually a Long Tailed Field mouse or Woodmouse. He is very cute, I might knit him a jumper for Christmas.

Windy weather

Windy weather, stormy weather is the forecast today. You can say that again, as we can hear the wind whistling through the house. We are cosy and warm with a wood burner. I am having a well deserved rest having just spent the morning helping to fill and carrying baskets full of wood to the coal shed with my husband. The truck load is now stacked high. We had the first snow on the hilltops during Monday night. So now I am now going to sit and draw and paint.
My laptop is poorly, gone to be looked at. I started moderating the comments as I was getting lots of spam in the comments and maybe have got a virus, anyway my screen is just a mass of wavy blue lines. I am using someone elses computer, had to load my photographs here too.
So that is why I have not posted for a while, crossing my fingers it is not too serious and can be fixed.
Back to the drawing. I was walking down a little lane and suddenly I hit a wind tunnel, debris was blowing through the hedge, and I had to protect my eyes from the branches and leaves and bits of dead plants crashing into me. Then as I passed all was calm again. This strange experience made me stop and look back and I realised the road was littered in the blown red berries, leaves and twigs and the hedgerow was stripped clean. I picked up rose hips and hawthorn berries, leaves and some rusty coloured fern. Here is some of my collection, painted in acrylic ink and my fine number one sable brush. It is becoming my favourite brush when I am in the mood to do things slow and carefully it is a delight to use.
Thank you for all the lovely comments and the interest in the mouse. We wonder how many we have? Latest news is a half eaten bun, so now all bread safely in the cupboards. Then I discovered they have eaten flower seed packets in a kitchen drawer and chewed at a new packet of toilet rolls upstairs in the bathroom. Now he/she is getting naughty, very naughty. I now have a drawer of mice paper confetti. But it makes me smile, I can't get cross but I would love to know where my golden acorns are.

a little peep

I have collected many acorns this year, they are plentiful. So I thought I would let you have a little peep at my oak project. I started this zigzag book with found oak leaves way back in January. I planned to add anything I liked. The seasons brought different stages of growth and colours and of course the acorns.

I had quite a collection in my kitchen on a tray on the floor, dropped there as I empty my bag of found items after each walk. This morning when I entered the kitchen I noticed an acorn half way across the floor. It seems my resident mouse has helped himself to most of the acorns. Not only is he living in the house, had several sightings now, but he now thinks I am collecting acorns for his family.

The most amusing part of this story is that I have been painting some acorns gold for Christmas. My mouse has stolen some of my golden acorns, it would make a great story. It really is true, the mouse with the golden acorns.

Hope you like my acorn studies...in paint, pen, ink and whatever I felt like at the time. I really love some of the beautiful old brown leaves, they hold memories of a place and a day we went for a walk.

Thank you so much for the comments.

Fragile Beauty

I was out for a walk on Wednesday. The sky turned dark and a strong wind warned it was about to pour down. I rushed home and ran up the garden path. It started raining, Leaves were blowing off the trees and I caught sight of a brown jagged edged leaf on the ground. My hands were already full of finds. I picked it up to discover it was not a leaf but a butterfly. It resembled a leaf in both shape and colour. Inside the house I placed it on a plate and realised it was wet through and the wings were stuck together. It only had one antenna and it just fell over to one side.

This morning I went into the kitchen and the sun was streaming through the windows and my butterfly was sitting with its wings open in the sunlight. It was damaged and yet it looked so beautiful with the many colours glowing. It was very fragile and the wings are damaged but it made me stop and look. So of course I had to draw it, I found a box of crayons and sat and recorded my find.

Several hours later, here is my little drawing. It has been a long time since I used crayons, today I used mostly Derwent studio, around ten different shades consisting of browns, orange, yellow, blues, a black and a white. My model sat still and just closed and opened the wings once.

Hope you like my little butterfly. Press for close up.

I am having problems with my laptop, strange colours waving across my screen, so hope this works okay. I cannot see the colours accurately.

Press for close up.

Nature Walk

On Friday we had a really lovely sunny day and I went for a walk up through the lanes in my village. I love this time of year when the hedgerows are literally hanging with red berries. Also the blue berries of sloe, blackberries and elderberries. I collected little hanks of berries and ended up with a variety of the Autumn harvest.
The day was warm and sunny and just like me lots of wildlife were out and about enjoying the day. I saw sightings of dragonfly, beautiful speckled woodland butterflies, grasshoppers, Jays shouting high up in the trees and a little mouse. The acorns are green on the oak trees and after the stormy days the road was littered with the fallen ones. As I selected some acorns it was obvious many had already been in the hands of a squirrel as the insides were gone. The same with the hazel nuts, empty shells under the Hazel branches. Later we watched a grey squirrel running along the wall and off across the fields.
I arrived home with so many lovely finds. I knew the berries would soon be flagging and I needed to record them quickly. So all evening I sketched, the middle photograph shows my progress. On Saturday I continued to work quickly to try and record the different specimens using acrylic paints. So here is what I managed to complete, as the leaves are now dry and curling and the berries past their best. It makes a bright colourful double page entry in my book. Press for closer look. Hope you like it too.
Once again thank you for your comments and welcome to the new followers. Millyx

You already know I love Red

I bought the red currants, they were at the supermarket and under the lights they just glowed so shiny like little fairy lights. It was a while before I got to draw them and paint them. On that same morning I was met by the spider sitting in my bath. It was placed in a jam jar and heading for the back door, until I decided I wouldn't throw him out just yet. You guessed he ended up in the drawing, then later free to go in the garden.

You know I love red berries. I sat in the sunlight in the kitchen and recorded them with red acrylic paint and a number one brush. It took hours but I like the result. Behind me is a lovely pot of three currant jam home made by my friend. She used red, white and black currants picked in her orchard in Wales. It is also a shiny red jam and I know it will taste so good.

As for the huge spider he went free to be replaced the same evening by an enormous one crawling up our stairs...didn't fancy that one..husband dealt with that. And last night we discovered we have a little mouse in the spare bedroom at 4 am...and still not been caught! Thank you for your lovely comments, it is always a pleasure to find them.

Hope you like the red currants. Press for large view. Millyx

Little things

I had just finished a drawing and had lots of acrylic ink left on my plate. Looking around for something small I could draw to quickly use it up. The tiny striped feather was sticking out of the pages of my square book, found on the beach walk and placed between the pages for safe keeping. I quickly recorded the delicate shape and pale coloured pattern. Still more ink to use I decided to find a few other objects. That was easy, small objects fill dishes all over my house after I empty my pockets of newly gleamed finds, and there they stay until maybe one day they are chosen.

And so a feather, an oak leaf, an acorn, a sycamore and that looks quite pretty. I walk around the garden to stretch my legs and collect a red berry, a blackberry and a piece of seaweed, just to use the ink up, but now I need some new red ink for the berry. My eyes are fixed on the jug full of striped feathers and I know I must draw some of them soon, they are so lovely. I collected each one because, well because I couldn't leave them, each one a different shape and colouring and to me so beautiful. It always seems so hard to choose between them and leave them behind and when I brought them home I promised to draw them.

So I chose one, added it to the little things that were just to use up the ink. How things lead to others. Well I like little things and the feather I chose. Hope you do too.