Harry Clarke

I went to Dublin for my birthday and had the wonderful surprise of stumbling upon some stained glass windows by Harry Clarke at the Hugh Lane Gallery. I have been a huge fan of Clarke's beautiful stained glass, prints and illustrations since I was a teenager and harboured a pipe dream of travelling around Ireland seeking them out in remote churches - so imagine my joy when I happened upon them whilst on a birthday day out!
(I almost got to see Liam O'Maonlaoi in Whelan's that very same day!! Another lifelong dream but sadly just missed by but a few short hours.. it might all have been too much for me anyway.. I'd rather not talk about it..)
Anyway - the windows were every bit as stunning as I'd imagined, but a lot smaller, like looking at pictures composed of jewels, These were roughly about A3 in size - amazing!

Fairy Cakes

My sis is getting married in August and we are going to make a cupcake tier instead of a wedding cake - these are a few early experiments - not the earliest experiments as they were too dire to be seen! It was such fun making these and they were absolutely delicious! We used sugarpaste coloured with food dye to make the flowers and iced them with sugar paste circle cut outs, glace icing and melted chocolate - so yummy - can't wait to make some more!

Paper pod is back!

Paper pod is back! And to herald its return, a small paper pod!!!
Albeit a very crude and basic one..! This paper vessel you see before you is the product of a few minutes' work at a papermaking workshop I ran on Saturday just past. Very simple - pulped up tissue of various colours applied to a plastic bowl, decorated with some thread, scoops of coloured pulp splashed over it and left to dry. Not the most exciting artefact you'll ever have seen but shows how simple and versatile paper is. I must get back to some serious papermaking - Saturday reminded me how much I have missed it and I have vowed to make some time over the summer hols to get back to it. I will upload some slightly nicer paperpods soon too!

craftbee : painting

My friend Maxine and I started the craftbee venture some time ago but due to various reasons its been on a bit of backburner for a while. We have SO many ideas for things to make and do that we never really get round to doing or making any of them! So we have decided to devote Thursday evenings to trying out arty crafty things. Last week we spent the evening experimenting with painting - something we would both like to be better at!
I wanted to try out using masking fluid to mask off areas of the page so that two contrasting techniques could be used together. This piece didn't come out quite how I'd planned as I'd wanted the background very watery and uncontrolled - it became a little tight as I worked on it. This was then to contrast with a more controlled and highly finished drawing. I think it would've been more successful with more contrasting colours as well - but as a first experiment I'm pretty pleased. I reverted to my old favourite theme of pods here too! Maxine created a really lovely leaf painting using different textures and shades of blue and green - you can see it on Noodles & Doodles!

Supper Club - Greek night

We had Supper Club at my house last friday - this month's theme was Greek. The food was unbelievably good and everyone had gone to a real effort to cook delicious Greek fare - and lots of it! There were so many leftovers I didn't have to cook for the rest of the weekend!
Some of the highlights for me were the many fabulous lamb casseroles, orzo, spicy kebab amd fried halloumi with capers dressing... I think it was the most yummy yet! Next month's is Indian - can't wait!

Misty Mountains

My sister Cathy convinced me to go on a hike with her up the Mourne Mountains...... she is training for a charity trek round Iceland - you can sponsor her here!
I haven't been up in about ten years, since I was young and (very relatively..!) fit. It was SOOOO hard. We only made it to the saddle (not even to the lowest peak - my fault) but by the time I got back down I'd found a new admiration for the efforts of the ring-bearers!
Just LOOK how high we were!!

Narnia mural finished at last!

The mural which my friend Maxine and I have been working on (since last August!), based on 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' by C.S. Lewis is finally complete!
We put the finishing touches to the carved panels on the wardrobe door a few nights ago - they can be seen here on Maxine's blog Noodles & Doodles along with lots of other great photos of the work in progress over the course of the year and a newsclip from a local news story which featured our mural as part of the C.S. Lewis festival in Belfast!

Rathlin Island art adventures

I recently got the fantastic opportunity to facilitate four childrens' art workshops as part of the Celtic Festival of the Sea, on Rathlin Island off the coast of Ballycastle.
Rathlin is a small island about 7 miles long and home to around 80 people. The centre of the island is at the harbour where the Manor House, above, greets visitors and the island bus ferries them along the singular road to the RSPB bird reserve at the West Lighthouse, the highest point of land. There is one shop, a tiny poorly stocked cabin open only a few hours a day, one bar - open all hours of the day! - and one restaurant. Its sheer lack of civilisation and its remoteness was so refreshing - people leave cars unlocked with keys inside, childen run amok like they own the place and seals lie basking along the coast ! Everyone was so friendly and the place exuded a real sense of community that you rarely come across in normal life.

My brief for the kids workshops was to help them to build lanterns and model boats to take part in the finale of the festival, the launch of a currach being built (above) in front of the Manor House by artist Holger Lonze. I decided we would make lanterns inspired by Celtic art, a dragonboat (above) based on the traditional Viking longboat and a swan boat inspired by the myth of the Children of Lir who reputedly swam in the surrounding sea. The photo really doesn't do the lanterns justice - they were very effective, especially with light inside. We used willow to form the fish shapes, covered with tissue and PVA glue to form the transparent layer - this layer then had Celtic patterns stuck on using string to create silhouttes against the light and washes of watery paint to colour and gold acrylic to detail. The dragonboat and swanboat were also made using willow and layers of waxed paper with PVA. Hard work!

The kids were absolutely brilliant to work with - the three pictures above working on the dragonboat were the real die-hards! I found the experience really inspiring and refreshing in so many ways; the beauty and remoteness of the location, the closeness and relationship to the sea, the pride that the people of the island take in their community, their history and folklore, and the small glimpse I got into the art work that Holger does and the effect it has had on those involved in some of his projects.
An amazing weekend for me - I didn't want to get the ferry home...

My Dad's 60th

It was my Dad's 60th birthday at the end of May and we had a big family dinner out for him. My sister and I made him this card, with '60 Years of Jimbo' in pictures inside! I think he really liked it. Its amazing how little he has changed from the picture on the front - exactly the same expression we see today!
We had such a laugh looking through all the old photos albums to get the pics to make it! It was interesting looking back over holidays and parties we remembered as children, seeing things we had almost forgotten about, our parents at our age and younger and thinking about times before we were even born!

My mum (spookily similar to all three of us!), my nana, and my auntie. My dad when he was young - wasn't he handsome!

Flower painting workshop

I've recently been trying to develop a programme of art and craft based workshops that I can offer to arts centres. I devised a one-day workshop on Flower painting, using acrylic paint, and held it at a local centre. I was really looking forward to it as I'd never taken a painting workshop before, but its something that I love to do in my spare time when I get a chance! The proposal was that each person bring a flower or plant and by the end of the day they would have produced a painted canvas. I was really pleased with the response as the class was fully booked out!
When you take an adult class as you get a real mix of people - those with no idea where to start and others with so much experience and ability that you wonder why they came in the first place! Its really interesting to see where different people will take the ideas you give them at the start and what they will end up with! The photos I've included below show two of the pieces that really stood out to me during the workshop :

The lady who painted this geranium hadn't painted much before and she was so thrilled and excited at the result - it was really great to see! I love the way she used complementary yellows, purples and pinks and blended and scumbled the paint in the background - the photo really doesn't do it justice!
In the russet coloured one, the girl used sand and PVA to create a textural background and made her flower image much less realistic by using patterns and motifs she had collected from magazine clippings - very effective I thought!

car booty 2!

This week's 20p treasure!
A frog oven glove - he looks kinda 70's!

car booty!!

These are my first finds of the car boot season, mercifully upon us again at last! I just love car boot sales - you never know what you're going to come across and its always very affordable!
You can get the full rush of a massive shopping spree while only spending a few pounds!
I am really pleased with the Japanese style teaset - love the overlapping glazes used on it - and a snip at only £2! Some pieces are missing but there's enough for tea for two!

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This blog is mostly going to be about arty stuff of various kinds and some other stuff from time to time too..