Hello again! (and Facebook)

God! - don't you just hate it when people don't post regularly? Ooops!

This Friday (19th July) we are having a preview of our exhibition -" Titterstone Clee" at the Discovery centre, Craven Arms. 6-8pm. All my readers are very welcome!

This is the Titterstone related picture..

 And this is the one that got away! I just couldn't resolve this so it resides, half-finished in the further recesses of the studio.

Hopefully I also will have three other pieces in the exhibition which I have been working on recently, oh one of them is a bit older but not been framed till now.

And ok I take it all back about Facebook - I am due to organise our school craft fayre next year and guess what? A large proportion of it happens on facebook so I have had to go along and sort out a profile etc. Well, while I was there I thought actually this looks quite useful - to have an artists page - so please go and have a look... Katy Alston artist illustrator. And sad to say its a lot more user friendly than this, I can use my ipad to post there and I think I'll find it a lot easier so....see you there! ( For fellow Luddites, you can just go and have a look, you don't have to join in!)

Titterstone Clee

As a member of the secret hills art cafe artists ( what a mouthful) I have been out and about looking at Titterstone Clee hill, which is the subject for our summer exhibition. The hill lies about five miles east of Ludlow.

I had in mind what I wanted to do for the project until I went up there and was blown away (fortunately for me not literally) by the views and sheer scale of the place....

 Here's the trig point (this ones specially for you Simon!)

And the big golf ball, to do with radar etc

Looking  west ..I think that's Ludlow down there

  

So now I have another idea entirely although I might get around this confusion by just doing more pieces! Heard of the Mappa Mundi? That great map of the world features Titterstone Clee as the major hill in England ...HaHa take that Scarfell pike! Many apologies I'm getting a bit carried away but it is quite a wowsy place - pretty awe inspiring lets hope the work will be too! I'll let you know when the exhibition starts......

Blogging from the ipad

Here we go then..... blogging away the hours. Actually this is a trial ipad blog, seemed to have a bit of trouble last time with it so thought I'd give it another go.

And yes you've seen this one before I know but that's because it's a try out you know !

Well it all seems fine today perhaps in the meantime something happened in the big wide blogosphere -who knows?

Lets see what else I've been up to;the short answer being... not a lot with Horatio now back at work but joining the ranks of my taxi service customers (I give him a discount though) also it's been Easter holidays for offspringwhich sucks up the hours.

Ok so its not fine - I can only get the pictures I've already displayed it seems.

Meanwhile back at the Mac............................

I made some  Easter cards for various family members and there's the little hedgehog eraser - a present from dearest daughter. Its quite effective actually. And if you look carefully you'll see a mug I painted at Emma Bridgewater's painting studio in Stoke on Trent with a picture of Horatio with his sling on... you have to look Very carefully (Yes!You in the back - Put your glasses on!) with whippets!

And then these two little pieces are for a specific project - more about them in time...

 I"ve been trying out ecoline concentrated watercolours and absolutely love them! So I tried them out on my "Dunroamin" picture - I think the bear likes them too.....

 To say nothing of the old hedgehog!

Difficult to stop now........

Ok so I've been a bit slack as usual on the old posting but here we are like buses, two coming along at the same time ( I know - it should be threee but "cuts" are biting...)

I've been doing some drawing out there in the garden, and waiting for my sheds!!! to arrive. Two sheds,one of which is a bee shed! So to make sure it came , I drew it beforehand..........and then I drew it again - mines the one with the bee-suit hanging up.....I'm so glad I managed to get them here now whilst the bees are still hiding from the cold so they didn't want to investigate all that banging and noisy shed installers! Now we don't have to spend our time falling over bits of bee hive and I get a great hide to draw the birds from!

The rhubarb is coming up well - it used to grow in my childhood home, then my father split some for me almost twenty years ago and thats carried on until this year when I split it again. Its like an old friend out there in the garden.

Brookside Farm Book

Sheepdog and conversant sheep.
These were two of the first pictures I did for the book before I got most of the text sent to me.

In the book there's a page where the protagonist has to find something on the messy farm noticeboard:

and this is the other half of the spread...........

                                   








The characters family tree, involving lots of little drawings and anotations..........

 For the very first images in the book I wanted to create a map so as we all knew where we were!
It included  part of a list of jobs that might be carried out by farmers as part of one of the steward ship schemes.

If you remember this book was commissioned by the Area of outstanding natural beauty people in Craven Arms to help build links between the farming community and the rest of the people who live in the area. It was great fun to do and I really hope it works - we al need a little more understanding....

Accident at Brookside Farm! Drum roll.....

A little while ago I posted a pic on here and said it was part of a project (book) that I was doing for the Shropshire Hills AONB office in Craven Arms. On Monday we had a book launch at Acton Scott Historic Working Farm and here is the book! Well the cover anyway! I shall return soon to tell you more about it but right now I have to dash! Be back soon, Katy

Awaiting normality.....seeing things in black and white...

Things are slowly beginning to get back to normal... the cyclist continues to improve but there are still many appointments to attend and therefore less hours to do artwork in...but some work has been done.....

Trying to do a bit of black and white work for an upcoming project. 

In case anyone is interested - the house and hedge that inspired this pic is between Wistanstow and Bishops Castle at Asterton. I say inspired - I never really get to see it properly as I'm always driving past it, and its on a corner and you know it helps to look where you're going doesn't it?

 Had to get some beehives in there - I can see these bees creeping into my work because I spend quite a lot of time wondering

 a) Are they still alive? 

b) Has a mouse got in ?

 c)What happens if Queenie is a drone layer? ..

 and so it goes on! Hopefully things will become a little clearer in the next few weeks but in the meantime we need some sun (for me as well as the bees)

Be back very soon, Katy

 .

Spending time with Horatio..........

           It all started so well... There he was, pedalling away to his heart's content.         

 I

The  sun was shining, birds were racing along with the happy cyclists, I was doing some cycling type pics for some unspecified  Ludlow cycling club business...
when slide,skid wallop...fractured dislocation.

Oh well, back to the drawing board ( I wish..)

Here's a few pics I did a while ago......

There's been a bit of a delay to things recently because I seem to be spending most of my time doing domestic chores as there's only so much a one-armed wounded cyclist husband can - it seems..... Hopefully he won't be one-armed for much longer.......whinge,whinge.....

These are cards I made for " open studios " last year, and following on from doing card type things for the house of cards, I thought I'd get around to putting a few on my Etsy site.........

  







Looking forward to a quieter time,
Katy

House of Cards

Its January and the House of Cards will soon be on....

As the Discovery centre in Craven Arms puts it......

"House of Cards

30 January until 19 March
This exhibition is our annual showcase of miniature masterpieces. Strung throughout the cafe and gallery are hundreds of works of art that everyone can afford, in the shape of handcrafted greetings cards."

I've been making a few cards for it, using some of the images I printed before Christmas,

together with my little lino-cut bird....

Apart from that I've been doing some drawings, to be revealed at a later date and last night I went to a beekeeping meeting which made me pine for the summer when my bees looked like this...........

But I think at the moment they look more like this....

.(at least I would if I were a bee in these temperatures) As you might guess daily temperature readings have taken quite a dive since my last post! Beekeeping paranoia is beginning to set in......will they survive? Aargh! Let you know in the spring.......

Happy New Warm Year!

The weather has been abnormally lovely the past couple of days here... there's been sun, (!) and light (!) and warm enough temperatures to clean out the greenhouse! Lovely!

After weathering the last couple of weeks I feel the need to do some work! ( which doesn't involve any sort of food preparation ) I was thinking of doing some sort of animal inspired pen and ink type something or other. Back in the summer I made a picture of the mutts doing what they like to do....

 

and I thought I might do a few bits following on from that.  

WARNING for those of you without a whippet pre-disposition look away now!

                               Poor Mitty whippet has been suffering with a corn now for some time and has endured 3 operations and now even that hasn't worked so if there's any whippet gurus reading this please email me and advise, many thanks! Email is of course on my website connected to this blog :-                     

katy@katy-alston.co.uk

WARNING OVER!