Chaos theory . . . and carrying on as normal

What a lot has happened since my last blog post on 17 June, not only has the UK decided on Brexit and to swerve onto a different course leaving everyone on both sides of the argument bemused and *insert words of your own choice* but also here at home we've had a chaotic few weeks - stuff happens sometimes! - but we're all OK and that's the main thing.

When life gets messy it's good to take the long view and get things back into perspective . . . to help us do this we had a lovely day out at Wrest Park, somewhere we discovered a few years ago; since then English Heritage have done loads of work and there's now a lovely café and more of the house is accessible. But it's the park and beautiful pavilions that are the main attraction.

On the day we visited the unexpected bonus was that there was a brass band concert, add to that sunshine and some delicious ice creams and it was a perfect Sunday afternoon in the park. 

So . . . what's been going on in my studio?

I've designed 2 more Christmas cards for Plantlife, they'll be for sale online later in the year; and I spent an intense 5 days working on a packaging project for a Scottish design company, drawing and then carving lino faster than I thought possible! I hope to show you the finished design sometime, maybe early next year.


Then there's Gardens Illustrated, I illustrate Frank Ronan's column 'The Writer's Plot' a few months ahead of publication, in fact today I'm carving the lino block for the October issue. 

Here are the illustrations I did for the June issue . . . Camellias - do you like them? I confess that I don't but maybe that's because I've never had a garden where they grow happily and look good, frosted buds and clumps of brownish petals aren't a good look in my opinion. In the article Frank discovers that Camellias can be pruned in the Japanese cloud-pruned style, known as Niwaki. If you follow my blog you know I love Japanese design so this immediately grabbed my attention and cheered me up; so I took my inspiration from Japanese blue and white ceramics.

As I've come to expect, Frank's next article was a complete contrast; in the dry oppressive heat of the Californian summer Frank encounters a little weed, it's Groundsel which as you probably know is a common British native weed. Frank seems homesick for a damp verdant English garden:

"you know how it is when you are abroad and lonely and you meet someone slightly disgraceful from home whom you never really liked, and suddenly you feel they are full of charm and you get drunk together and talk too loudly"

Frank Ronan

I hunted around our garden and soon found a Groundsel plant that I could draw from life; looking carefully are the complex curves and points along the leaves, how the leaf wraps around the stalk and the cluster of flower buds and the fluffy seed heads, I'd begun to find Groundsel interesting too! And this sparked an idea for a project of my own through June ... 30 Wildflowers From My Garden, each day I sketched a different wildflower and posted the picture and some facts about the plant, on Instagram.  

It became fascinating ... I learned new botanical terms like 'dioica' and 'achaeophyte' and 'neophyte'.

I found that even the most mundane and common weeds have amazing stories to tell.

And at the end I realised there were many many more still to sketch, I could probably find 100 wildflowers!

So, this is something I'll probably return to from time to time and start another sketchbook of 'More Wildflowers From My Garden'.

Last week, at the end of another hectic weekend, we we went for a walk on the high fields between our village and Cambridge ... we hoped to get a glimpse of some of the air displays at Duxford Imperial War Museum and we weren't disappointed - a flypast of 19 vintage WWII planes just for us!

And on the way home, this glorious view across the cornfields and the sky full of skylarks singing - that's the tonic we needed to start another week and just focus on getting one thing done at a time - it's as good a theory as any to sort out chaos.


Celia
xx

Coming soon: 
FolkEast 2016 and Cambridge Original Printmakers Biennale

Purple Podded Peas blog is 8 years old ... really?!

Eight years ago today I wrote my first ever blog post, my intention was to keep a sort of diary of things going on in around my studio. And I think that's what it still does.

I've charted a my venture away from working on design and illustration  projects for publishers and into the realm of galleries and shops that now sell my own range of cards and prints. 

The inspiration for my work come from what I see around me. Walks in the local countryside, and sometimes adventures further afield, is where the patterns of the landscape and the wildlife that lives there make impressions in my mind, ideas to be worked on and blended together.

I hope I've inspired you to look at the countryside near where you live, to peep through hedges and watch the seasons change.

Coming soon on PPPs . . .

When I decided to concentrate on working in linocut or woodcut, I had a dream . . . something I was vaguely aiming towards – that I'd be asked to contribute a regular illustration in a 'nice' magazine, maybe one about the countryside or perhaps about gardening. 

Well, it's happened!

The April edition of Gardens Illustrated will include the first of my regular monthly illustrations for Frank Ronan's regular column which appears on the last page. I think April Gardens Illustrated will be for sale by next weekend, so I'll write more about working on the first illustration in the next blog post.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend

Celia

xx

Eric lived here!

Never believe everything weather forecasters say . . . yes it was chilly, yes it was cold in the wind BUT LOOK it is SUNNY! the sky is BLUE . . .

Let's go for a walk . . .

After working this morning (there are a few photos on Instagram) and needing to visit somewhere after lunch we found ourselves in Castle Hedingham this afternoon. 

I'd printed off a walking route and we set off along the north Essex farm tracks . . .

. . . and sunken lanes glowing in the sunshine

About an hour and half later we were back in the village 

I wonder who lived in this elegant brick house near to where we parked the car?

OH! well well!

And just around the corner from Eric Ravilious's former home is a rather marvelous tea room . . .

. . . very nice cakes and a pot of Suffolk Blend Tea!

Perfect!

More photos of our walk can be found here.

Have a lovely weekend
Celia
xx

Redgrave and Lopham Fen through the seasons

In late April we visited Redgrave and Lopham Fen on the border of Suffolk and Norfolk, it was Spring – the leaves were fresh and bright green, the reeds beds were full of birds, bright flowers spangled the heath and marsh and we heard the calls of the cuckoo and bittern . . . it inspired this linocut.

Yesterday we returned, our intention was to have a long quiet walk – but when we arrived we found dozens of cars in an overflow carpark! Suffolk Wildlife Trust were hosting a Apple Day Fair, it looked like fun so we paid the entrance money and went in for a look around . . .

There were lots of apples!

and some cute hedgehogs!

I bought bargain plants and vintage garden tools

and then we went for our walk . . .

Redgrave and Lopham Fen is large enough to feel like a wilderness; the weather was perfect – warm and breezy – for a day striding out between the rustling reed beds.

I love the textures at Redgrave and Lopham Fen, especially the vertical patterns of the reeds broken up with areas of water that reflect the sky.

The swirling patterns of this willow's bark echoed the movement of the reeds and leaves in the wind.

Sunlight illuminated the vivid olive green lichen on the Elder bushes,

and the russets of the Teasel heads.

Along a green lane outside the reserve we came across the quintessential toadstool – the Fly Agaric. 

And back inside the nature reserve area we stumbled upon lots of Giant Puffballs  . . . and these really were giants! as you can see compared to our OS map . . .

. . . or to my toes!
The puffball on the left has been munched by something, the one on the right has matured and is puffing out spores.

However tempting the thought of bacon fried with slices of puffball for supper, we left them untouched.

As we made our way back across the fen we met the resident herd of Konik ponies, these were introduced in 1995 to graze the vegetation prevent scrub invading the precious heath and marshy grassland habitats. Native British ponies aren't suited to living in these tough, wet conditions but these Polish ponies thrive. Konik ponies have the characteristics of the now extinct Tarpan – an primitive type of horse that roamed the plains of Europe after the Ice Age. These beautiful stocky ponies look as if they've walked out of a neolithic cave painting! They were very placid and didn't mind a bit that I took loads of photos – I think they'll be appearing in a print inspired by Autumn at Redgrave and Lopham Fen.

I hope you had chance to enjoy the unexpected warm sunny weekend, before we batten down the hatches for the first of the Autumn gales.

Celia

xx

Oh my ears and whiskers!

"If we get up now we could go hare spotting"

We drove to our favourite 'hare spotting' location and started walking, it took a little while before we saw one . . .  two, three, four! (And five! - one just out of shot.)

You have to know what to look for, a hare at rest looks very like a clod of earth.

Until they move to graze on the winter wheat shoots . . . then you can seen the ears.

No boxing this morning, they seem settled in pairs. 

Ears pricked. Whiskers twitching. We've been spotted!

Showing us a clean pair of heels as they race to the far end of the field.

A lovely morning to be out in the fresh air . . . a bright blue sky and white Cherry-Plum blossom.

Golden Kingcups on the pond edges.

Bright lime-green leaves breaking on the Weeping Willows.

'Bread and cheese' – Hawthorn hedges greening.

The Badgers have been busy cleaning and extending their sett.

9 a.m. beginning to cloud over.

Time to head off home . . . yes this is a footpath, the farmer has recently rolled the field to sow Spring Barley and will re-instate the track when the crop starts to grow. We are heading straight across to a small marker post on the wood edge.

Back home before 10 a.m. and sitting on the sofa in the sunshine, with a cup of tea and slice and toasted and buttered Barmbrack that we bought yesterday as a treat.

Celia

xx

Shrove Tuesday walk

The weather was glorious this morning – clear and bright after an early frost. It was too good to miss so I set out on a walk from my studio, alongside the Stour Brook towards its source on Wratting Common.

"A little bit of bread and no cheeeeeeeeese!"

It was just me and the birds – Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Great Tits, Blue Tits and Yellowhammers. I noticed how the vivid yellow of the Yellowhammer's feathers matched the lichen on the branches and the brick bridge.

I walked as far as the derelict Nissen Huts on the edge of what was RAF Wratting Common WWII airfield, and sat for a while on the old tractor tyres listening to Skylarks singing high overhead, before walking home.

If you are viewing on an iPad and can't see the video below, you can see it here

Tomorrow Lent begins, do you give something up? Or maybe do something new?
I'm undecided, but this walk has made be feel more alive, so that's a start.


Celia
xx

Crepuscular spectacular

Yesterday I really felt that a corner had been turned, the wind was still chilly but on the branches leaf-buds are breaking and in the village churchyard the grass is full of newly germinated Sycamore seedlings . . . signs that nature is on the move.

Late in the afternoon the sun cast a warm glow across our garden, so we decided to go for a walk; we chose one of our favourite routes skirting a large wood, snow still lay in the shadow of the ditches.

It didn't take long before we spotted others enjoying the last rays of afternoon sunshine – a hare basks with his nose facing west towards the setting sun.

 

Hares are difficult to photograph at the best of times, but I managed to zoom in on this one – aren't its ears beautiful?!

And there goes another . . . racing along the skyline!

It was that time of evening when the deer come out of the woods to graze in the fields – a magnificent Fallow buck followed by three hinds.

In the fading light and against the brown fields they were difficult to see, let alone photograph. This group of female Fallow deer were on the other side of a tall hedge, I managed to find a gap through which to get a good view – they had spotted me!

You can clearly see the colour variation in the herd; the classic fawn and brown, and the very dark almost black 'melanic' variation.

The sky in the west was glowing brightly and we new we were in for a good sunset . . .

. . . gold . . .

 and then an extraordinary flare of colour – a Sun Pillar

Sun or Solar Pillars are the result of the Sun's rays being reflected and refracted by millions of ice crystals in the atmosphere.

You can read more about the hows and whys of Sun Pillars here.

A crepuscular spectacular! We couldn't have hope for more.


Celia
x