Godiva and May

I have a picture in my head and I wish I could get it out....

I had looked at some images of Godiva and found this lovely picture (where I can't remember). Godiva is linked to May, I read this on a blog but I can't remember which either.

The images of Godiva and this picture and may poles with ribbons have recombined in my head to give a face with bright swathes of hair flowing out and covering the page like ribbons. I wish I felt I had the skill to get it there....

Trevithick Day Scavenger Hunt

If you want to know where the images come from then read on....

1) local currency
This is a special edition £2 coin commerorating Trevithick.

2) local flag
I really expected to find a St Piran's Flag (Cornish Flag) which is black with a white cross but I didn't... This was a tiny flag on the windscreen of a vintage Mini Cooper on display.

3) local food
Cornwall is famous for clotted cream, and the icecream made from clotted cream. This is an icecream van selling Cornish clotted cream icecream.

4) something rusty
Well it used to be rusty! This is the water pump that used to power the organ in the chapel where the flower festival was. It has been fully restored and pictures of how it used to be were displayed behind it.

5) local wildlife
Well.... At the flower festival, celebrating God's Wonderful Word, this was my favourite display, entitled Kingfisher... Hence wildlife...

6) Local nature
The trees and stuff are all nature but I wanted to squeeze in a picture of the Battle Stone or Maen Cadorath. It once resided elsewhere, between villages called Gwithian and Gwinear and was said to commerorate a battle with each dot and line remembering a death in this battle. It was moved in 1904. I think this is typical of christianity in Cornwall - Celtic Christianity which grew from the people and landscape as well as from the cult of Christianity is somehow a little mroe forgiving of things that might be deemed pagan - it adopts them whole and swallows them up, adding them to itself in recognisable form so little is lost.

7) local stamp
Not exciting stamps, sorry but there are some nice Finnish stamps there to.

8) part of your neighbourhood
View down the main street.

9) traditional house
A typical street with typical granite terrace houses.

10) a local person
Commercial Square with the Holman Male Voice Choir singing - if there isn't a local somewhere in this picture then....

11) local weather
Another display from the flower festival entitled Storm.

12) local transportation
A replica of the Puffin' Devil, the first ever steam powered mobile transportation device, created by Trevithick.

13) traditional local clothing
The children's dance in which the girls dress as Bal Maidens (the ladies who waited at the mine entrances to process the ore) and the boys as miners.

14) night sky
From my back door...

15) sunrise
Very cloudy day so the sun didn't really rise, the cloud cover just got lighter.... Again from my back door.

16) local product (non-food)
Craft fair stall showing carved wooden bowls and vases.

17) something furry
A dog...

18) something feathery
Penzamba samba band member with lovely feathery headress.

19) a sign of the season
Primroses and wild garlic growing on an old grave in Camborne Churchyard, just round the corner from the Battle Stone.

20) a part of you
An accidental photo...

21) your main hobby
Books...

22) a local shop
A fabric shop which had a lovely display to commemorate Trevithick Day.

23) a local restaurant
Tyacks is an 18th century Coaching Inn which is now a hotel, pub and restaurant. They often have live bands as well. All of the buildings shown are part of the hotel.

24) a street sign
Union street

25) a local mailbox
A mailbox in the corner with the Golowan Band in the background.

Orphaned Postcards!

Postmuse has a very interesting project. A large collection of blank postcards with no stamps, or postmarks, or writing. Claim a postcard and it will be sent to you, to write on and send back. You don't have to live in the place the postcard shows, just having visited it is enough...

I claimed three and they arrived today. I had to scan them in....

I have a picture of Cadgwith, a postcard showing old engravings of Kew Gardens and a map of Cornwall. Luckily I get to go post things tomorrow so off they will go again....

Can you help a poor orphaned postcard?

Goodbye Kitty

My latest postcross card called for a slight diversion from my normal diet of landscape cards. The only thing they listed as liking was Hello Kitty... I looked online and saw no cards so the chances of finding any in my small town are kind of low. I did look in the biggest local supermarket which has a whole aisle of cards, but no trace of hello kitty...

Never one to turn down a challenge I thought I would make one!

The pink gingham is tissue paper. The flowery paper on the right is fairy paper with said fairy removed. The flowers on the left are a vinyl tape. The for you at the bottom is sticky ribbon. The heart is a peel off. Kitty herself is some clipart I printed off.

I then laminated it so it hopefully won't fall apart in the post.... I stuck a label on the back for the stamps.

I can't imagine she will get to many hello kitty cards so I hope she likes it!

Punk Postcross

I have recently started using Postcross. A lovely idea for exchanging postcards with the world. I sent my first five, of which only two have so far arrived and this entitled me to send two more. So far I have just sent normal landscape and nature cards of Cornwall but my seventh address called for something a little different...

This person is an artist who likes altered art... They want things half destroyed, changed, whatever and of course, I had to rise to the challenge....

The plain white card was splotched with cats eye inks. I then used stickers to do the writing. Crumpled the card then cut it up and finally stuck it back together with tape... I hope they like it!

Easter

It isn't that I haven't been creating - it is just that carrying my laptop up to my scanner and making room on my craft table amongst the drying things only happens when I have time.... This piece and the butterfly swirl piece have taken quite a bit of time and have had various drying stages.... I know this piece is a little late but hey...


The bottom layer is some nice bright wrapping paper. Pictures were stuck on top and then light green coloured gesson smeared over. I then added the tissue paper rainbow leading to the card eggs. I wrote Wordsworth poem about daffodils in gold pen down the middle and the story of Easter over the rainbow (the one where the Goddess comes to earth on a rainbow to heal a bird but the wings were too broken so she made it into a hare that laid brightly coloured eggs and whose appeareance each year ushers in Spring).

Over the picture of Mary discovering the stone rolled away from the tomb I drew a sun in gold and used chalks to colour it like a sunrise. I then added a gold frame and added a little gold to the whole piece. I added the names of Easter and other Easter time festivals in green metallic paint around the border.

The Easter picture is from a childs book, the old picture is of the Goddess and I found it on wikipedia, the little passover picture was from a website giving free Jewish clipart, the hare is from my llewyllns calendar, the hot cross buns music is from a childs nursery rhyme book. My favourite picture is the one in the middle by artist Thalia Took who kindly allowed me to use her work here.

I am not sure how much I like it - I think i have a lot to learn about using pictures in my work...

Butterfly Swirls

These pages were made using strips of blue tissue paper in various hues. I then put very long thin strips of silver and white tissue paper over the top. I then mixed some clear gesso with some cheap silver premix and a tiny bit of good blue acrylic. This gesso was mostly see through but added to the blue of the page and the silver gives just a tiny bit of glittery sheen. The butterflies and flowers were punched from holographic paper and glued on. At the bottom I used some art fibres but these haven't come out very clearly, they irridescent in two shades of blue and two clear ones with blue or green sheens. I then made little trails behind the butterflies with my glus pen and added some blue green glitter. I then spray fixed it.

As normal the scanner can't capture the play of light on all the glittery bits on a page like this...