Old Pogo Prints

These are from a few different outings over the year and were probably in my last journal too. But I thought that if I don't stick them somewhere then they will just sit in a bag. Left page-Dungeness. Right page-snow drops at Welford Park.
Dungeness.

Cassie and Sainsbury's

Man in a Window

As we were driving to Whitechapel last weekend, a fat man appeared in a window. He caught my eye-I was driving but in slow moving traffic I hasten to add! I have not done him justice here as he was turned to the side and filled the window in a most interesting way.
The other page is just some fancy paper I think I got from my friend Clare. I like the combination of colours with the man's page.

Spotty Blotches or Blotchy Spots

These are the results of experimenting with gelatine printing. You make up the gelatine on a flat surface such as a baking sheet-I used a plastic tray (food packaging) and stood it on a baking sheet. Once the gelatine has set you can then put ink onto it and take a print from it. You can put things like leaves into the ink I think-I am not sure if I understood the instructions I had properly. I was being impatient so I just blobbed a bit of printing ink (watercolour) on and had a go. The first print came off with a layer of the jelly on it which I thought would never dry, but it did. The next couple didn't have the jelly on it but were more wishy washy looking. The one on the right here is the first.

The print on the left of this page is from a perspex block. The spatters are watercolour. I might add to these two pages later.

Inky Darkness and Tinkly Gold Ear-rings

This page is really doodly. The left side is a watercolour girl based on the pretty description from the book. Then a red and yellow orchid but no moonflower! On the right hand side there is a character that came out of a pen doodle stuck to the page, and watercolour doodling around it. The words say 'inky darkness' and the character that has emerged could have come from somewhere inkily dark. He looks a bit like Salvador Dali to me.

The Red House

William Morris' house in Bexleyheath. We visited a couple of weeks ago. The painting is from a photo of the house in an old book I have got. It is a black and white photo so made concentrating on the light and dark easier. My postcards from the visit. William and his wife Jane.
Jane and the oriole window where the ladies sat to do tapestry while the men played croquet on the lawn. Nice! It looks like eyes doesn't it? The guide told us that some of the windows were shaped liked Viking helmets and they looked like faces too.

Break and a Flower Disaster

The other morning, on the BBC breakfast programme, there was a man talking about something to do with divorce. I was only half listening, as I was making tea, but I noticed him say something about marriages breaking up, then, slightly later, about them breaking down. I love the way that happens with certain words, and how they can be included in many idiomatic phrases. So, page one is about that. Can you guess all the break phrases? Answers tomorrow!
No answers-I forgot. Break in, break out, break up, break down, break apart, break open.
The second page is just based on the phrase left uncovered-flower disaster. What a great phrase!
Both pages are gel pen, oil pastel and watercolour.

Mish Mash

This is a bit of a mish mash page. I was trying out a crossword stamp I got from ebay-it is old but looks brand new. The face had orange eyes-in the text it talks about 'marmalade eyes'-a strange choice of description and not something I have ever seen in real life! Then as I was painting a bit of colour around the page, a cup of coffee appeared, which actually goes quite well with a crossword!

Another Travel Lodge

This was the page I did in the Travel Lodge at Beeston, really late at night, after getting back from the barbecue. The other one is here. The text left unpainted says 'You had a camera?' which is good, as I did. On the opposite page is my bus ticket from the same day, in an envelope window.

Underneath is a small sketch of myself in the mirror.

Brusho

Brusho is a powdered watercolour ink that you mix into warm water. I have known about it for years, but have never tried it until now. This is a page just trying out the colours. You only need the tiniest bit and can dilute it as much or as little as you need. I have been using it at school with the kids as it is perfect for wax resist and I wanted them to do covers for their learning journey books. It is a quick way of getting 35 individual and beautiful works of art-speed is of the essence as I have so much to get done at this time of year! They have been enjoying using it I think. It is great stuff! Transparent yet intense. Also on this page is a photo transfer of two of my dolls having a chat! Perhaps they are talking about brusho.

The Passage

A pogo print of the book I have just finished reading-"The Passage" by Justin Cronin. Nearly a thousand pages long and I finished it in about a week and a half! The quote from ''The Saffron Sea'' is most appropriate for this post-apocalytic story.

''If now is happy be glad, before it becomes then.''

This book is one of those that I couldn't put down. It reminded me a lot of Stephen King-in the gripping nature of the story and in the way the relationships in the book are portrayed and used to make a fantastical story believeable. It is the first in a trilogy but the second isn't out yet!

Bad English Bear and Gardening

The page on the left is my response to the polite notice about towels that Travel Lodges leave in their bathrooms. Their advertising features a fat little bear with a gold chain, enjoying his stay in a Travel Lodge, and he is on posters and notices around the place. This bathroom notice is written in very sloppy English and whenever I read it I feel annoyed!

"We always try and do our bit for the planet.

If you don't need you towels washing, be good and leave them on the rail.

If you would like fresh towels, just pop them in the bath tub so we know."

Aside from the bad grammar, they give you new towels anyway, even if you do leave them on the rail. Aaargh!! I do worry that I am getting annoyed over something very minor, but that is the way it is!

The other page is in contrast to the angry one, in that it is about calming gardening, and how there are lots of deliciously scented things in my garden which I love. The central part is on an envelope window-gouache paint scraped into. I had a lovely evening gardening and I listed all the scented plants around the edge.
Aaah, calm down Sarah!

A Horse of Course

Trying Lynne's mixture of oil pastel and gouache on the first page at the top. Turquoise pastel, white gouache. The pastel resisted the paint in a most satisfying way, allowing a little to stick.
A pogo print of my felty horse that a lovely lady in America bought. She is especially lovely in my estimation as she called my horse 'folk art' which I love! The orange crosshatched paper is envelope interior. It looked like a stand to put the horse on.
The second page is a pogo taken from my friend's car the other night in Leicester, on the way back from Bradgate park. The lights and rain made lovely effects I thought.
I tried to recreate some of the effects of the light with the paint.

Garish Page

These two pages are about Tiger and drinks.

I love chai tea lattes from Starbucks, coffee with vanilla or amaretti, ginger beer, and at the moment, my favourite drink is rooibos tea with vanilla that I got from Marks and Spencers.

Tiger loves this chair. I stuck on scraps that I liked, and painted around everything with gouache paint.

Doll Dress Design

My red felt dress for the travelling doll project. This doll is called Apeironia and is a fairy. She didn't fancy the whole pretty fairy type of thing for her costume, but instead plumped for designer style-a Yohji Yamamoto copy. The felt is handmade and the whole design process started when I visited the Yamamoto exhibition with my friend at Easter!

...

... was what blogger called my saved post. I quite like it so am calling it that too. Minimalist and quite stylish I think! There are a few pictures today as these pages are all linked. The first page is a pen drawing with water added-is this pen and wash? I think it might be. It is of a little girl found in a photo in a drawer in a basement in a junk shop. It is a sweet photo. She reminds me of my Mum when she was little. My Dad recently showed me a box of tiny old photos-mainly of my Gran as a young woman, doing day to day things like being on their farm, posing with a young man, and standing next to someone's motorbike. There were pictures of old pets which were sweet and touching somehow. I have never seen them before which is terrible I suppose. You can see how easy it is for these things to get lost from families and end up abandoned in junk shop drawers. Oh well, I shall look after whoever she was now. Until my stuff ends up in junk shop drawers. I am just depressing myself now!
The brown page is a list of all the second hand purchases I made in a short period of time a couple of weekends ago. It was, as I have written at the bottom, a spree. Some were for the garden, some were for collections-the musical box-which I will show some day on circles of rain, and some were just for fun! (Well they all were really)

Then there is a photo of the actor Peter O'Toole. I have just re-watched the whole gruesome Tudors series, and he was great (and funny-the writers must have felt the need for a bit of light relief from all the torture) as one of the Popes.

Another photo transfer page-this time of a photo of one of my dolls. The drawing is of a woman in the other photo I bought that day from the same place. This one's date is earlier I would say.

Then the two pictures themselves-I will make a pocket in the journal to keep them I think.

School

Having my hair done by three year olds, Princess and the Pea doodle, flower I painted when at nursery-painting alongside the children. I added glitter at home.

Dreams

The first page was a face I didn't like, so I painted over it with gesso and started again. Her eyes ended up closed, which made me use her hair to write different types of dreams in-recurring types of dreams such as falling, dreams where I solve the great mystery of life, then forget it as soon as I wake up, and dreams where I imagine that my house has another hidden and secret room that I suddenly discover-and it solves all my space problems. I have always had this dream wherever I have lived-and sometimes it takes place in my work environment too.

On the second half of this page is one of my lovely irises and a purple ink drawing of a part of it, done with a feather. And a spelling mistake!

Circles

The circles are cut out of another book and stuck in, with no thought of what to do with them. Then I painted a sketchy picture of the alliums in my garden on the folded page-they were looking so lovely against the green of the rest of the garden. Then I drew around the circles with black pen and smudged it with water and it came out this lovely purpley grey-so I left it. Below the circles is a quote from the circles. On the following page is a border of cirlces which are actually stickers for putting on the bottom of scratchy objects. They are velvety. There is also a photo transfer of a swan and a list of things to do, but I have not got a photo of that page. The swan was already there and has absolutely nothing to do with anything! I do like the repeated circles though.

Warm red felt dress for Apeironia the doll. Warm wool for warm legwarmers, and the pattern for the legwarmers themselves.

Wedding Dress Sketch

This is as far as I got with my Royal wedding page. A sketchy sketch of the dress and a list of the friends of Andy's Mum who we met on the day!