Before I get immersed in work I'll tell you about the event I was part of on Sunday . . .
Plants & Crafts in the Garden at Wyken 2015
Wyken Vineyards is in West Suffolk, about 50 minutes drive from my studio, I've visited many times and it is lovely!
After last week's glorious warm sunshine it was a shame the weather turned back to grey and very chilly for the weekend, on Saturday night the heavens opened and we got the rain – the first for 6 weeks! It was an early start for me and just after 8am I was setting up my stall in the 'Farmers' Market' cart sheds. I just had time to visit the exhibitors' loo, located in the cute little red cottage above, and run round the end of the cart sheds past ranks of pre-loved buckets and garden spades and forks before the customers started streaming in!
Here's a quick snap of part of my pitch, I'm pleased to say the cards attracted lots of people and I was constantly restocking the stand.
This was my view for most of the day . . .
I used small ink pads to ink the block and took prints at stages to show progress. By the end of the day I'd almost completed a small print . . . I'll do a few tweaks and print an edition of these next week.
This was a lovely event, I hope I'll be invited back next year. The only downside was the weather, by the end of the day I was chilled and stiff - so it was a wonderful surprise to see Cliff arrive to help me pack up and load up the car.
After a hot bath, a glass of red wine and supper of rib eye steak and lots of vegetables, I was much revived.
The best thing about the day was all the lovely interesting people that I met and chatted with.
I came home with a few treats for myself and our garden:
a Campanula pyramidalis Alba plant from Sue of Bellflower Nursery; a made to measure leather belt to hold up my jeans, from Mark of White Buffalo Crafts; a pretty spotty jug from Rob Wheeler and a beautiful yellow Auricula from John Hewson.
This week I'm up against a deadline for completion of two large woodcuts for the back and front of a book jacket . . . a lot of carving to do!
Look out for Gardens Illustrated, I loved working on the illustration for the May issue – I'll be back with a blog about that soon.
Celia
xx