visual diary

clocks, anger, crosswords & dogs.

bank holiday holiday

I love bank holidays, and this one was exceptionally wonderful.
I wish it didn't have to end.


Amongst many other treats we managed to squeeze in a bit of drawing at the Tate modern where there were some nice bank holiday events taking place (including this).

Good times!

3 birthdays & a thank you

LET'S CELEBRATE ! ! ! !

handmade cards • a forgotten banner • some beautiful, but very VERY sweet cupcakes

tit for tat

Have a look at this lovely bird - it's the wonderful work of Richard Phoenix and there's plenty more where that came from.

I'm doing a printmakers trade-off with Rich at the moment. He kindly requested one of my lightbulb screenprints and I jumped at the chance to swap it for one of his pieces of work (I hear he's got some wonderful screenprints under his belt). As a taster he gave me this postcard of one of his oil paintings, which is pretty special in itself.

He has also done an amazing painting of Rosie which I hear he sold this weekend at one of the Artists Open Houses - great news!

study trip

On Monday I went to London to visit an inventions exhibition for my MA research which turned out to be half useful & half a waste of my pennies. I filled my day with other activities though to make the trip worth my while.

I did some drawing in the V&A, found a giant rhino costume, wrote a postcard, bought a skirt, hunted for a post box, joined the crowd outside covent garden tube station & waited for a friend, hunted a bit more for a post box & somewhere to eat, found a post box, went for mexican food, got some free seeds & ran to catch my train.

A good day.

time is ticking

New crayons.
New visual diary.
New batteries in my wall clock.

1 o'clock = Chaffinch.

sunglasses & cheese

On Sunday we hopped in the van and took a little trip to Middle Farm.

There was running & jumping, some extremely soft lambs, a bit of tree climbing, a very big horse, some terrible cider tasting (& some slightly less terrible), a little bit too much of a donkey, some cheese & chutney buying AND some very big pigs.

foolish behaviour

I made the raspberry fool! It was easy as pie (well, far easier than pie actually).
It tasted pretty good too, especially on top of the homemade shortbread - check out Rosie's blog to see the end result - I think we get top marks for presentation, no?

Sam's sushi was amazing as usual & there was such a lot of it - what a treat!

Tonight I'm going to a rather exclusive eurovision party & have a rather special outfit lined up to mark such an occasion:


Bring on the gold & sequins & political voting!

i like colouring in

I also like cut & paste. A good activity for a Thursday.

Next on the list is to make raspberry fool to go on top of the shortbread treats made by Rosie yesterday. Wish me luck!

We are having sushi supper at Sam's tonight and if it's anything like last time we'll be very happy & very full by the end of the evening.

she comes in colours everywhere

These are the results of my last screen printing class. It was a BIG rush trying to get all the colours printed in time...and some of them are a bit higgledy-piggledy but I think I like it like that.

Now I'm thinking of other courses I want to do. Not until October of course, once my MA is finished, but my top choice at the moment is pottery. I'd like to do something messy I think.

NEWSFLASH: It's national sandwich week! I hope you have all been consuming lots of bread based snacks. I have half a loaf of bread at home that needs eating today so I am going to eat many a sandwich for lunch (& a jam sandwich for pudding!).

It was also national limerick day yesterday. Someone wonderful wrote me some rhymes in time for my lunch break - it made my day.

And an advance warning...next Saturday is world turtle day...I'm not sure what you can do to mark such a special occasion but do get thinking now.

feathers

Yesterday I spent some time drawing some patterned textures. Feathers was my favourite.
I also went to the pub quiz: Agatha Quiz-team, 3rd place, biscuits! A good result.

one more to go

This week will be my last screen printing lesson. The course has gone ever so quickly but I have managed to get quite a few things done, & I'm finishing off a 6 colour print on Tuesday night - hope it turns out ok (I'm not always that accurate with my registration).

through the letterbox

My postcard collection is growing fast (thanks to some very kind people) and I am running out of room on the boiler to pin them up. So now I have a plan...and a map (courtesy of The Guardian):


This world map is soon to be mounted on my kitchen wall so I can track the postcards I receive (with satisfying pins & bits of string). Though it has been pointed out that a lot of my postcards are sent from within the UK so I may need a separate map to plot those points - England is far too small in relation to the rest of the world. Though it seems to have been scaled up quite a bit on this map:


The hunt for a second map begins...

buy something nice

A treat of a shop that I stumbled across today: Studio Violet
I'd like to buy just about everything.

And another one too: Three Potato Four

quiz eubank holiday

My bank holiday weekend included:

• Drinks with an old housemate.
• A new housemate.
• An old man with a fez & a bow tie.
• An afternoon play.
• Adventure golf with the national crazy golf champion.
• Fire & lanterns in the park.
• A trip to the sunday market.
• A vintage car rally.
• Tea & victoria sponge at the Mock Turtle.
• Pub quiz!
• Cycling along the cuckoo trail.
• Three big dogs (and a quick furry hug).
• Lasagne, cheese straws, vegetable pasties, picnic omelette, a tuscan mule, fruit loaf, pineapple.
• & bed.

Only two weeks until another one.