Cooking with colour

With two blocks carved for the first of the new set of prints, it was time to start printing . . .

It's a bit like cooking, first I needed to assemble the ingredients and do the prep'.

Dark Bronze Blue, Yellow Ochre and White inks plus a dash of Extender makes pale turquoise.

Rolled out so it makes that nice chush-chush sound, and we're ready to go.

Block number one positioned on the drawing board and inked up

and after using a bit of elbow grease the first print is hung up to dry.

I don't have a vast array of tins of printing ink. Maybe it's a throw-back to A-Level art lessons where we were only allowed four tubes of watercolour paint: Prussian Blue, Yellow Ochre, Light Red and Crimson. My printing ink collection consists of Dark Bronze Blue, Crimson, Yellow Ochre, Primrose Yellow, White and Black (which I've gone off using).

Yellow Ochre, a smidge of Crimson, and teeny weeny dab of Primrose Yellow, white and teaspoon of Extender and we have Suffolk Pink ready for inking up block number two.

I usually print onto BFK Rives paper, but results can be variable – temperature, ink colour, the size of the blocks all seem to influence the success rate. For these prints I decided to use a different paper, I chose Kitakata 36gsm paper which is handmade in Japan using 90% Philippine Gampi (Wikstroemia diplomorpha) and 10% pulp. It's got a lovely silky texture, a vintage book page colour and is very strong, but it's also slightly translucent which makes printing much easier because you can see what's happening as you rub the reverse of the paper onto the inked block.

The second colour was really quick to print.

So now I need to get that third block carved . . .

The tabby studio assistant was a great help . . .

Spring!

Today is the Spring Equinox, when day and night are of equal length and in the Northern Hemisphere it is officially the start of Spring.

This morning I put on my Village Magazine Editor's hat and walked through the village taking photos to cheer up the April issue. The morning mist was just clearing and although it was cold at 10.30am (I could see my breath) I could feel the sun's power. Along the grassy verges were clusters of violets - in fact white violets are more common along the village roadside than purple; I wonder if because they are unusual people have encouraged patches to spread. Where the white and purple grow together there were a few 'milk and water' violets.

Back in our garden the senior under-gardeners and Spice Girls had a jaunty confidence as they surveyed their foot-work along the garden borders.

The greenhouse has had a major spring-clean last weekend and it's all systems go for 'Veg-season 2009'.

I hoped to show you pictures of the inhabitants of the wild-life pond, but my attempts at night-time under-water wildlife photography failed miserably. I wanted to show how amazingly beneficial the pond has been for the local Common Newts - when we moved here ten years ago there was a tiny pond in the garden, one of those preformed plastic ponds in a bright shade of turquoise which I nick-named 'Barbie's swimming-pool'. After a few years we got round to digging a larger shallow pond next to it and lined both ponds with a black pond-liner. The liner extends under the surrounding garden to create an area for pond-edge planting. We moved nine newts from 'Barbie's swimming-pool' into their new 'wild' environment and bought them a Water Forget-me-not as a moving-in present, within a few days we noticed the newts had laid eggs, neatly folding the Forget-me-not leaves over to protect them. Now is the time when newts get amorous, so a trip down to the pond in the dark with a torch is rewarded with seeing them doing their flirtatious underwater dances; I was amazed to count sixteen newts in one corner of the shallow pond - it just shows how a small change to the garden can be beneficial to wildlife.

While failing to snap frisky amphibians, I noticed a movement on the far side of the water - a nocturnal huntress on the prowl . . .

Cluster; peak; overload . . .

Whatever you choose to call it, I'm a bit busy this month. But feast and famine is a fact of life when you're freelance – and the upside is that I work in a lovely studio with 'studio assistants', I can hear the birds singing outside, the radio is tuned to Radio 4 and when I do take a break I'm only a few steps away from the garden and the under gardeners.

When people discover that I work as an illustrator they often conjure up an image of Beatrix Potter sitting in a flowery field drawing bunnies, well it's not like that and I'm sure even Beatrix worked her socks off to meet a deadline occasionally. When I was at art school the Head of Illustration, John Vernon Lord, brought us down to earth by telling us his first commission had been to illustrate a plumbers' catalogue. I take on all sorts of projects; a rich seam of work comes from English as a foreign language text books – have you ever thought where all those little pictures come from? Well I'll let you into a little secret . . . I draw them. Well, not ALL of them, but over this week and last week and next week I'll draw 234 of them.

There are some things I love to draw . . .

Salad, cake and fruit

Client: Emc Design © Nelson Thornes

Plants

Client/© :International Teaching Services

When I was very young I loved looking at a very very special book my Gran owned, it was The Encyclopedia of Needlework by Therese Dillmont, with my Gran I tried out the embroidery, knitting and crochet stitches. But it was the illustrations that I loved the most, I spent hours and hours looking at them and can remember them all. I wanted to be the person who drew all those beautiful diagrams.

Dreams can come true – these are for some 'Textiles' worksheets for Key Stage 2 . . .

Tying for dying

Client: Black Dog Design © A & C Black

Stitching

Client: Black Dog Design © A & C Black

Must get on – today it's beans, biscuits, cereal, cheese, chocolate (need reference for that!), coffee . . .

We think she's forgotten something . . .

The ginger one: "Play attack! Play attack!"

The tabby one: "You do and I'll bite your ears!"

The ginger one: "Just a thought..." (thinks: boring girls!)

The tabby one: "Last one to the top of the wigwam is a fat ginger sissy!"

The ginger one: "Don't care! Why doesn't the boss come out to play with us in the garden?"

The tabby one: "She's too busy with stuff called 'deadlines', she hasn't even cleared up the mess the under-gardeners have made. She hasn't picked these old dry beans – I'll have to do it for her – and she's even forgotten it's that blog-thing's second anniversary tomorrow!"

Wuffing warriors and WAGs

OK, guess where and when this was made . . .

It's the design on a tiny silver coin made in Suffolk 1300 years ago. The period of history between the Romans leaving Britain and 1066-and-all-that used to be dismissed as 'The Dark Ages' - I always wanted to find out more, surely it wasn't just "dark" for a thousand years! Of course it wasn't, it was a time of huge change and resulted in the formation of a culture that underpins what we think of as "English" - our language, food, villages and towns. However inspiring the art of different cultures is, it will always be exotic and I will always be an outsider looking in; the art of the early Anglo Saxons is the art from the people who made my world.

While I'm working in my studio I like to listen to either BBC Radio 4 or BBC Radio Suffolk, yesterday afternoon when Lesley Dolphin, on her new improved afternoon show All About Suffolk, interviewed Caroline McDonald, the curator of a new exhibition entitled Anglo Saxon Art in the round - I pricked up my ears . . .

There's no time like the present, this morning we drove the width of Suffolk to go shopping in Ipswich and visit the exhibition in The Town Hall. The central display in Gallery 3, shows the 'De Wit collection' of Saxon coins in four display cases within a reconstruction of a long boat like the one found at the ship burial at Sutton Hoo (just along the coast near Woodbridge). What is amazing is the size of the coins - they are teeny tiny, the tip of my little finger could cover them! Helpfully the walls of the gallery display large dinner-plate sized photographs of the designs from the coins - birds, foxes, horses, kings . . . and there they are on the actual coins, miniature works of art, so fresh and imaginative.

Ipswich, or rather Gipeswic was an important sea port and trading centre, it was key to the power of the ruling dynasty - the Wuffings. The finds at Sutton Hoo revealed the intricately crafted bling worn by warriors and their horses, in this display there are a few finds from warrior's graves - shield bosses, daggers and spear heads, but it's the Wives And Girl-friends who steal the show in the displays of treasures from the Hadleigh Road site in Ipswich. This is what the warriors' WAGs wore in 7th century Suffolk . . .

The reason we have all these gorgeous Saxon accessories is because a single minded Edwardian woman named Nina Frances Layard who's hobby was archaeology, rushed home from her holiday in Scotland in 1905 because she read in the East Anglian Daily Times (presumably posted to her) that skeletons had been found by workmen digging near the Hadleigh Road back home in Ipswich. She took charge and organised 150 labourers to continue the excavation through 1906, unearthing 200 graves and the occupants' precious grave goods. The gentlemen directors of the town museum viewed her with amusement . . .


On our way home we went to the TV celeb pig farmer's place Jimmy's Farm, as it's the first Saturday in the month we knew that Emma, aka Silver Pebble would be there selling her wares. After munching our burgers in the 'Field Kitchen' we tracked down Emma in the barn. She was just about to pack up her lovely beads and silver charms, but very kindly let me select some beautiful moss green tourmaline beads from her stash and with a deft tweak of her pliers customised a pair of hoop earrings for me - thank you Silver Pebble :-)

As I couldn't take photos in the exhibition these pictures are scanned from the post card and guide book I purchased at Ipswich Town Hall. © Fitzwilliam Museum and Ipswich Museum.

Releasing the hand brake

Reading other artists' and makers' blogs is sometimes like being back at art school – I become aware of how other people work and how there isn't a 'right way'. Blogging about my printmaking has made me more aware of how I work . . . and it's not a smooth creative curve. Drifts of ideas accumulate in my mind, the build up starts to cause a sense of panic about the inactivity – but the brake is on. I need to give myself a deadline – there's nothing like urgency to make me release the hand brake.

Today I told myself that I absolutely had to draw out some designs for a new group of prints; I'd been thinking about them for too long. I needed the same short deadline that I get from publishers "artwork by 4pm today please" – so that my mind switches off and I just work until the job is done.

I spent about an hour in the garden drawing in my sketch book; back in the studio I worked on the compositions with acrylic paint – I like the way it dries instantly on the paper. By limiting the colours to a dark peaty green, terracotta and a pale blue/green I had to start to think in three different lino blocks.


I like to work directly over my sketches so that the initial spontaneous marks aren't lost and I enjoy working very quickly so I don't have time to consider and ponder before I make a mark. This afternoon I scanned the three images and adjusted the sizes. I could see repeated shapes – arches and circles . . .


Woohoo! It's a relief these are now down on paper!

The next stage is my favourite – cutting the lino :-)

Heavenly hats

I love hats, sadly I don't wear a hat as often as I used to – but as an art student I wore a Boy George style black felt hat covered in brooches; when I got my first job I had to walk past a hat shop in St Christopher's Place on my way to meetings with authors in London, if the meeting had gone well on the way back I'd buy a hat; my favourite was a leather and brocade beret with a silk tassle.

I'm thrilled to see that hats are BIG this week – a fab looking exhibition has just opened at the V&A in London, which prompted an interesting article in the FT last weekend. I'd never thought of wearing a hat as being an 'English' thing – but now I think about it traditional English occasions do seem to need a hat – Ladies'Day at Ascot, garden parties, watching cricket on the village green, weddings . . .

Sixteen years ago today I wore this hat when I married Cliff . . .


It fitted like a glove – no it didn't, it fitted like a made to measure hat! I wore it all day; I didn't want to take it off; in fact I forgot I was wearing it! The lily on the back exactly matched the real ones in my bouquet and the buds were made from the same fabric as my skirt and jacket. Today it lives in a box in the top of the wardrobe, but yesterday I lifted the lid and took it out just to admire the work of the milliner who made it . . .


It was made for me by a young designer who had a hat stall on Enfield market – I was attracted to his hats like a wasp to a jam butty! We got talking, he'd recently graduated from St Martin's Art College and was making hats for some very prestigious cat walk shows. "Would you make me a hat for my wedding?" I asked, and he did. I see in the FT article that Andrew Bristow is teaching the millinery course at the London College of Fashion (if he has a web site I'd do a link - if anyone knows it let me know).


POSTSCRIPT:
Andrew's family have been in touch with me to tell that sadly Andrew passed away on 26 December 2009. They have set up a web page in tribute to him here. He was a talented and creative milliner who gave so much to his students and all those who wore, and still wear, his hats. I am so pleased that I met him and to own two of his unique creations.

Celia

Let's go to the coast

Yesterday we decided we needed a day out on the coast. It's easy to forget we live in a coastal county, we're about 2 hours drive from the sea. A search through our extensive collection of books of walks found a circular route through the sandlings and along the River Alde to Snape – just the thing! (click on the map to enlarge it)


It was a glorious day to be striding out along the sandy paths lined with gorse bushes with their yellow coconut scented flowers. Our guide book was written when Rendlesham forest had been flattened by the 1987 hurricane, it described 'views across to the river' – these were now behind tall conifers and silver birches, 20 years of forest regeneration.

The middle section of the route was along the River Alde with views all the way to Snape Maltings. Flocks of waders and ducks were on the shallow estuary, from time to time some took to the air calling reedy, piping notes. This is one of the traditional wherries with its brown sail – the sort of boat that sailed in and out of the east coast estuaries and rivers carrying all sort of goods.


After our walk we drove to the nearby coastal town of Aldeburgh. Of course we had fish and chips, eaten straight from the paper bag while sitting on the sea wall.

There are loads of tempting shopping opportunities at Snape Maltings and in Aldeburgh – so what did we buy . . . pottery from the gallery at the Malting? a dress from the designer clothes shop in Aldeburgh?

No – I resisted! A jar of pickled onions from a table outside a little terraced house and this beautiful line caught cod from one of the fisherman's huts on the beach.


We'd never bought a 'whole' cod before and here was the opportunity to cook the very best quality fish. I consulted my copy of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook, he recommended cooking the head with generous quantities of fresh herbs . . .


and some chopped onion in 750ml water with 250ml white wine . . .


The tender white flesh from the head was served 'a la Hugh' with mashed potato and a drizzle of a fruity olive oil – no further pictures 'cos we were too busy licking our fingers and saying mmmmmmmm yum!

The fillets will make three more delicious dinners and there's a litre of excellent stock for soup or a risotto. Oh I wish I lived nearer the sea, we'd do this every week!

Once a hen-witch, always . . .

Thank you for all your good wishes for Ruby. After another day on a yogurt and porridge-oat diet, Ruby has returned to the flock. The first thing she did was ignore the corn tea-time treats and gallop off around the corner like a velociraptor hunting down Sam Neill. Within seconds she emerged from behind a bush with a rather stiff mouse!!!! HOW DID SHE KNOW :-O After a tug-o-war session with me, I won and disposed of the rodent's body discreetly. Ruby then rummaged around in the garden borders for all sorts of muddy tasty bits and bobs! She's happy to be back with her fellow under-gardeners and within pecking distance of the Spice Girls.


Her crop still feels a bit squashy, but we’ll see how it goes – there's a definite improvement and her breath smells, er well, sort of like a hen. She’s a good actress and would never let on unless she’s feeling really really really sickly!!! Thank you Wendy for the advice about the anti-fungal stuff she needs if the yogurt diet doesn’t work. I loved Woodland Fay's comment referring to Wendy and me as ‘hen-witches’ LOL!!! I told a friend who who writes a 'Chicken Chat' column for her village's monthly magazine, and suggested she qualified as a hen-witch too. Apparently the villagers refer to her as the 'mad chicken woman at the bottom of the hill', so 'Hen-witch' was a good alternative.

At the weekend my Mum gave me some black and white photos of me a long time ago. Mmmmmm . . . once a hen-witch, always a hen-witch ;-)

The patient patient

WARNING: If you're of a squeamish disposition, you're advised to not read any further.

The grande dame of the senior under-gardeners, Ruby, was looking even more matronly than usual. Her proud bosom (I know hens don't really have a bosom) stuck out as if she had a Christmas pudding stuffed under her breast feathers. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw her hiccup – oh dear, something was up. Hen-keeping is jolly fun until one of your flock is off colour, then it can get very stressful. Help is at hand in the form of books, friendly fellow hen-keepers and the very, very useful website Poultry Chat. A quick look in the 'Feeding and Healthcare' section confirmed my suspicions . . . Ruby has Sour Crop.

The recommended treatment is described in graphic detail here. A gentler alternative treatment can be found on Wendy's blog. Ruby's crop felt very squishy and when she burped the smell was foul (sic) – I held her upside down by the legs and from her beak spewed a lot of very smelly liquid :-O When back on her feet she shook her feathers and looked at me; I apologised. I then gently placed her in Ward 1A . . .

Ruby's usual diet is varied and experimental, as well as her ration of layers pellets and mixed corn she eats large quantities of grass and other vegetation, worms, any passing amphibian and mice she grabs from the jaws of the studio assistants – no wonder the delicate balance of flora in her crop has gone wonky and the content is fermenting like the IPA vats at the Green King Brewery. I needed to get some 'good bacteria' into the mix – but how was I going to persude her to eat yogurt?!

Into Ward 1A I placed a sturdy soup mug containing water to which I'd added that universal dicky-hen panacea Apple Cider Vinegar and garlic and alongside a small glass pot of live organic yogurt, I sat this within a larger plastic tray so Ruby couldn't kick it over or fill it with bits of straw and sawdust.

Ruby walked over to the offerings and eyed them suspiciously, then she ate all the yogurt! She woofed down the lot and didn't burp. I gave her a reassuring pat.


Ruby's being such a patient patient. Let's hope the yogurt does the trick!

Dooooh!

I'd love to believe that this was the solution to the mystery . . .

Karen said...
A Fairy sled? ;)


Well, we felt like a couple of pillocks when I read out Wendy's comment

We have one of those creatures here too, it lives several feet up and runs from my office to the gate..... took me ages to work out what it was.
It's very friendly though, and brings in my phone calls.... dropping its straight track all at once when the ice thaws.


Do you mean like this, Wendy? . . .


The scientifically trained enquiring mind of Silverpebble was on the case too . . .

Is it drips or rods of ice from telegraph wires? There are no footprints so that's all I can think of - unless it's a beaver, whose tail is obscuring his footprints but that's pretty unlikely!

I think Wendy and Silverpebble deserve a little prize for revealing what dunces we are! And Karen also deserves recognition because from now on I'm referring to the trails left from ice dripping off wires into snow as 'fairy sledge tracks'. E-mail me to studio at celiahart dot co dot uk with your addresses and I'll see what's in the lucky dip basket.


Before I go to make our supper, I'd like to pass on a tip to any of you who live in a small village: Unless to want a job for life, pretend you are totally and utterly incompetent at everything.

A few years ago, after attending a Christmas service in the village church where there was no musical accompaniment to the carols; I somehow let slip that I could sight read simple tunes and play them on the piano. Which somehow led to me sitting in front of this . . .


. . . and doing this . . .


Which is all very well when it's a nice warm summer's day and you've got time on your hands and feel like playing a nice tune just for your own amusement. It's a whole other story on a cold damp February afternoon, when the temperature inside the church is about 5 degrees below the temperature outside and there is no heating near the organ! From experience I know this calls for thick knitted socks, sturdy thick soled boots, a fleece jacket under my overcoat, hat and wrist warmers and those nifty little pocket warmer sachet thingies to defrost my fingers during the prayers and sermon – none of these improve my performance but they do hide my identity. To paraphrase the lovely Eric Morcambe: I might not play all of the notes, but those I do I try to get in the right order!

Puzzle time: Tracks in the snow

It snowed again last night, re-covering the garden and plants in a soft white duvet. It covered the satellite dish too and blocked the signal, just as we were snuggled down watching Masterchef, after eating obscenely large portions of toad-in-the-hole, mash, sprouts and red onion gravy!

This morning it's mild and the snow is melting fast, but still lies a few inches deep in the front yard. Cliff returned from shovelling a clear path to the garage to say that there were strange tracks in the snow and maybe I should take photos.


There were two tracks, one less distinct that the other as it has been covered with a thin layer of snow. The track came from the corner of the yard nearest the river and the road, crossing the yard diagonally to the hedge on the other side. The more distinct track them emerged about 15 feet along the hedge and returned to the riverbank. You can see the scale next to our footprints on the left of the photo.


In some places there are breaks in the track . . .


and here too . . .


When 'it' emerged from the hedge it did this . . .


So, what was in our front yard last night? And what lives near our river?

We've no idea, have you?

I've been tagged again!

Soilman tagged me to do the 4-4-4 meme. His instructions were to “go into your photo archive, pick the 4th folder in the archive, select the 4th picture in the folder, and write about it. Then tag 4 other people to do the same”

I don't know how organised other people are about archiving their photos, but I'm rubbish! (Except for images for design projects, then I'm obsessively organised.) So, I just stuck a digital pin into the two folders that I found when I clicked on the 'Pictures' icon on my hard disk and out came . . .

Picture 1:
The tabby studio-assistant doing some pole dancing . . .


Picture 2:
The harbour at Santa Cruz, La Palma. This was the first day of our holiday last month and we had walked from the apartment in Los Cancajos, along the coast to the island's capital where we had lunch and wandered around the streets high above the town centre before taking some precipitous steps down to the road near the main harbour and returning along the coast road.


I tag Amber, Leanne, Rhiannon and Dottycookie. Picked at random from among my recent bloggy reads. Play by the rules, make up your own or ignore – the choice is yours :-)

Celia
x

Have you egged today?

Yes!

This was our first six-egg day!

Hunters in the snow

No brainer question of the day;
"Wash the kitchen floor or go for a walk in the snow with Cliff?"


We've just got back from a short walk across the fields on the edge of the village . . .

The snow has frozen and is scrunchy underfoot; sheets of ice cover the puddles and rivulets of water run beneath the frosty panes.

Just behind the churchyard we disturb a Muntjak deer, it turns in a scatter of snow and is gone. We follow the field margins, the straw coloured grasses stabbing through the snow, and look for animal tracks as we make our way across the smudgy landscape. A mouse had made tracks back and forth between two tunnels in the snow-capped tussocks; birds, dogs, horses had all passed this way.

Then a pale bird swoops across the white-striped furrows and skims over the hedge to our left – a seagull perhaps? No! an owl!



"A Barn Owl!" we whisper – it glides towards us and hovers low over the grasses; I fumble with the camera case and the rasp of velcro sends the owl in slow flaps away over the hedge again.

We stay and watch, inching along the hedgerow to a track which curves through the fields to a farm; we stand and see the owl in the far distance as it hunts over the ditch banks beside the track – and then there are two . . . a pair of Barn Owls hunting together in the snow . . . magical moments.




These are enlarged details from the photos I took. I like the pastel-drawing quality and the winter palette.
Hunters in the snow frozen in time.

It's like walking on eggshells

Hey! it worked this time . . .

Here's the vid that wouldn't upload this morning



Nutmeg has been transformed since we came back from our holiday (or was she swapped with a lookalike while we were away?). Gone is the timid and skittish, bottom of the pecking order, little hen I felt very sorry for; not only has she started laying, perfect pale blue-shelled eggs, but she is confident and friendly too.

Yesterday I watched her ploughing through the snow which came right up to her breast. Here she is today, scrunching over the ice-crusted snow. The other hens are marooned on the island of grass, top right; except for Sylvie, who is all in a flap, poor dear! She needs to get up into the nest to lay an egg, but how do you do it without stepping on snow?

What did you do on Snow-Monday?

It was as if the country desparately needed an excuse for a day off. Isn't that what Bank Holidays are supposed to be about but aren't, because we whizz around doing stuff and getting stressed out – yesterday thousands of people just took a day off and played. I've been looking at some of your great photos – Gina was making snow angels, Matron and Soilman were looking at how the snow had transformed their vegetable plots, Lucy made a cute little film (nice one!), Vegetable Heaven watched from her window, Zoe went for a walk and met some photogenic villagers . . .

. . . so, what happened to Magic Cochin?


As I wrote the previous post on Sunday afternoon the snow was starting to settle, we decided to go to the local cinema to see Slumdog Millionaire, this was our first visit to the brand new multi-screen just a few miles away. "If it's packed out we'll book for the later showing", "OK" I said (I can't say I was that keen to go out, I felt a bit subdued). The snow was swirling around the bright lights outside the cinema, there wasn't a queue – there were about 10 of us in Screen 4 to see the multi-Oscar nominated film sensation.

As the loud rhythmic music blasted out accompanying dizzying camera-work cascading through the turmoil of of the slums of Mumbai, I began to feel increasingly nauseous – it was as if the sound and images were turning my stomach. Had I developed synesthesia?

Cliff obviously enjoyed the film more than I did. "I thought it was going to be more of a 'feel-good' movie", "Indian cities are tough places", "I know. The ending was nice." And yes, it was a fabulous ending, there aren't many films where you have to stay for all the end credits – but this was one.

We drove home along the white roads leading into the village, the front yard was completely covered in a blanket of soft snow. I opened the door and the kitchen was full of the smell of pheasant pot-roast (I'd set the timer on the oven and our dinner was ready to eat on our
return). "Dinner smells good", "Mmm.....?" I said as I lifted the Le Creuset pot out of the oven, "I think I need to sit down". And that was it – I hadn't got synesthesia or lost my liking for a great movie experience – I was a victim of the dreaded 'winter vomiting bug' !

So, that was my Snow-Monday; I didn't go out to play in the snow or take photos, I stayed inside in the warm with the studio-assistants. After completing a digital illustration commission deadline and sending the work off in an email, I was too weak to do anything else.

I missed being out in the winter wonderland yesterday and now the snow is melting fast, but I have ventured out into the garden this morning. If blogger was behaving itself I would have uploaded a video of the senior under-gardeners and Spice Girls on the snowy lawn, instead here a couple of stills . . .

Ginger surveys the scene from up high

Nutmeg bravely strides out

Zeitgeist

Last week I scanned through the online catalogue for my favourite auction house in the hope of spotting another potential bargain. My eye stopped abruptly on a small framed picture – this one deserved attention. I wasn't aware that I knew the artist or the image, but there was something about it.


It's The Snow Shovellers by Clare Leighton. She was an illustrator and skilled wood engraver who worked both in England and America, most of her work shows people working in the countryside and she illustrated many books as well as posters for London transport and ceramics for Wedgewood. I love the strong silhouettes and sweeping curved lines which run through her work.

The Snow Shovellers was an image Clare Leighton engraved in 1929 while visiting New York. 1929 – the year of the Great Depression. She must have felt a world away from the English countryside she obviously loved and she captured a solemnity as the men clear the streets of snow and the buildings towering above them.

I couldn't get to the auction yesterday so left a cautious commission bid; my hunch that the picture was more interesting than the modest estimated price in the catalogue proved spot on . . . and I'm glad I wasn't there in person as the bidding soared way to a price I definitely couldn't afford! So I didn't buy The Snow Shovellers but I had an excuse to look at the work of a great illustrator and top printmaker.

The snow is falling outside my studio as I'm writing this – large slow flakes which are covering the courtyard with a blanket of white. Hope you're all warm and snug indoors.