Rusty goodness

Goodness! Goodness knows where the time has gone. Actually, I do know, it's just too boring to go into details - nothing exciting, just a heck of a load of paper being shuffled about.

Meanwhile, here are some lovely rusty bits I found on a recent trip to the depths of wettest Wales:

I just love this heap of wire (message to sibling - why is it on top of the log pile?  If you don't want it any more, I'll have it)

The sun did come out. Briefly. 

This is the view from the "top gate" towards the house, give it half a mile or so. Himself is still tickled by this, remembering the very first time I took him to Wales to meet The Family - "What, drive down here? It's a gate into a field..."

Hot off the griddle

and there I was wondering what sort of cake to make this weekend...

Happy St David's Day!



Location survey: Wales

We've just returned from three days being well-fed and rested in westest wildest Wales.  Just before we left, I read on someone's blog (I'm really sorry, but I can't remember where or who...) about doing a "location survey".

And it struck a chord.  Instead of wondering what to draw, or which sketchbook to draw it in, a location survey gives a structure, a guide - like a scientific process not an "artistic" process.  So I can record textures, colours, lines, shapes, patterns.....thinking about it reminded me of my 17-year-old self chucking a quadrat square around the sand-dunes of Pembrokeshire on my Biology A level field trip, and that was a lot of fun so I thought I'd give it another go.

Unfortunately we chose the wrong week to go to Wales:

Day One - Sleet and sideways rain

So I just had to draw what I could see out of the kitchen window:

Day Two: ventured out as far as the lower field and found an interesting pile of sticks

(don't think David Hockney need be worried yet...)

and coz it's a boggy field, there are a lot of tussocks:

The sun had come out by then, so I sat on a chainsaw-sculpted log seat and drew a quick sketch of the view over the "pond"

The "pond" now isn't, because it's been drained to make a bog garden - too many toddlers toddling over the horizon to have a pond now.  The tree at an angle on the LHS is an old willow tree, and I have spent hours and days of my life sitting in the crook of the branches reading.  The tree has nearly fallen over now, and is a bit too mossy to sit in, which is a shame.  It was a great spot to sit and read - easy to keep an eye on comings and goings from the cottage, people walking or driving tractors up the track from the farm, but not too close to be interrupted or asked to do chores...

Close by, I found this tree:

with it's amazing lichen-encrusted and mossy bark:

I got a bit cold trying to draw the lichen, so I warmed myself up by walking up to the top of the hill opposite the cottage, and down the other side to the track.  The wind was coming from the north and icy-cold, so I made a very quick drawing of the view from the side of the hill and tried to capture the movement of the wind through the long grass:

Day Three: nearly time to go, so time to face my fears and draw the flowers and bits and bobs that I stuck in a jam jar to "draw later":

(larch tufts)

My sketchbook isn't looking how I thought it would - so far it's all "drawings" and not "survey results".  But I'm really pleased that I did so much, and it definitely felt easier!

It's the law

...to have a honey ice-cream

if you ever find yourself in Aberaeron.

Like the Girl and I did on Monday.

It was our first day "out" since arriving here on Friday:

Not least because the car suspension had complained very loudly about being driven down the track to the cottage and we didn't want to push our luck by driving out again until we really needed to:

This is the view from near the top, by the road (I say road, it has grass growing up the middle and the hedgerow threatens to touch both sides of the car...)

And this is approaching half-way towards homemade cakes and an awaiting Mamgu:

Thank heck there is now a cattle-grid and not a closed gate.  That was always fun when arriving in the dark of winter...

Since we returned, well-fed on welsh cakes, maids of honour and apple tart, the Girl has been a bit busy:

We finally dug out the peg loom (lurking in the office for over a year - ahem) and a table mat was born:

And the next day, the Girl sat herself down with her box of bits and whipped up a little improv embroidery:

Seriously jealous. 

And a little bit worried that the Girl has a box of bits already. Scraps of fabric, the odd button, oddments of thread.  Uhoh.

But I did at least create something the day before we went away:

(I'm the blue one, since then I've unbeaded a bit - I had to finish for the photo in a rush).

A lovely workshop with the lovely Jill Flower.  I've wanted to do the flower workshop for AGES and I finally got the chance!  Hooray! 

Spur of the moment stuff

 A sketch I made in October, looking back down the road towards the sea (Cardigan Bay). 

The gate to our track is just behind and on the left.  We're going there on Friday for my sister's wedding, and I realised that apart from 100 invitations, I hadn't "made" her anything as a present.

I found the sketch on Saturday night, sat up in bed with a notebook and pencil and decided how to embroider it, and started and finished it in three hours yesterday evening (trying to blot out the memory of the whippet racing humilitation).

I'm quite pleased with it. 

It needs stretching and lacing over card (boring boring) and I need to persuade someone to frame it for me by the end of Thursday...a minor detail.