Sun!

It was so hot and sunny today but with a breeze-just lovely! This bumble bee is enjoying our crab apple blossom and we were enjoying watching the bee. I can't help thinking of this as a drowned garden. Not a very happy name I am afraid. This is the result of a little group of children and about ten minutes work. I didn't really see what they were doing until they had already picked all these flowers. I did have a word about the don't pick rule-mainly because I have to be seen to be consistent! I could understand their excitement though-it looks like a fairy's recipe or something! In many ways I do agree that rules are made to be broken!

When I left work I had to go to the shop to get juice for Forest School tomorrow-too hot for hot chocolate. I also got some chocolate bunnies so we can have a bunny hunt. I have the Easter Bunny ready in my bag to help! When I got home I had a tidy up and then decided to go out on another drawing trip as it was still so lovely. I ended up near Blackheath. I stopped to draw the tree just below, but also had a quick go at this beautiful house. I love that golden brickwork and the little balustrade on the right. (Isn't balustrade a great word?)

I re-did the middle chimney stack about three times in different places. I need to get the hang of measuring and comparing positions of things.

This tree is so intricate. I started to try to draw the main limbs and got muddled straight away. I liked doing the calligraphic type shapes of a few of the smaller branches. I think this is a tree you could draw forever and still see more parts.

It seemed to me an impossible tree.

About the House

Andy's robot piggy bank. He has a sheep, a pig, and this. This is the best one, as when you put a coin in it says ''Thanks for your saving'' in a depressed sounding robot voice. I even donate money sometimes to hear him speak.

You may remember the felted fabric doll and the one with the knitted purple dress. They lounge around on the back of the settee, replacing the gingerbread girl and the cinnamon smelling doll that are now living in the bedroom. I enjoyed drawing their faces, but the knitting patterns were boring me! I remember doing texture drawings at school-of knitted fabric, and one of soap on a towel. I persevered a bit more then.

The tv, the pile of baskets with stuff in, and the little table with a round box on it. The table is one of my favourite things as it looks like a traditional little round three legged table but is made of metal and is black and shiny. The bright white bit is tippex, as it looked ok left blank, but then when I filled it in with crosshatching it looked wrong.

Growing

The crab apple blossom ('these red things', so called by Jayden) are ready to open.

These bristles are growing in Greenwich Park. That is how it looks anyway. An elephant's foot at the base of the oak tree I went to the park to draw.

The whole tree. A Holm Oak.

My drawings of the tree and a man who happened to walk near it as I was drawing. The man was skinny and wearing a very old looking suit. He had hair in little tufts either side of his head-a bit clown like. He was interested in the tree as he walked under it-touching the leaves and looking closely at something. Danny Gregory is very encouraging when it comes to talking about drawing outside. If I was him I might have gone and spoken to the man, but I am not! This is my first go-done from the safety of my car. I only had about twenty minutes as I went for a little walk on the grass to the tree first. I found some feathers which I picked up, with the possible thought of making a headdress for a fancy dress party we are going to soon-for the 21st and 18th birthdays of our nieces. I may make a snake decoration for a dress though, and be a snake. Andy might be a donkey-for which I might have to make ears. It is all very much up in the air at the moment!

Drawings on tv

Slide show done on photobucket-more free fun!

Having published this post I see that the slide show is taking a long time to load. This may be its downside. If you click on the view all images you can view it.

Pelham puppet skeleton Doll sized rocking horse Decanters on top of the kitchen cupboards

Lily sleeping on the bed with me yesterday. I love the way she puts her little arm (leg-but the arm one!) over her face.

I feel a bit miserable this week. I have not been to school-feeling ill-and this is the week that ofsted have turned up so I missed it. Although I am not complaining about missing it-that would not be true -I do feel guilty as I have missed the added stress that everyone else has had to cope with. Anyway, Foundation Stage got 'good' like a great big relief bringing tick. The rest of the school will have their judgement tomorrow. What a horrible thing ofsted is. The actual inspectors are usually pretty nice, but the ridiculous build up to it (which in many ways has been going on for the whole year in my school-the disadvantage of not having much notice anymore) puts such a strain on people and takes their energy away from what is important.

Good things to cheer myself up-the Amaryllis I got for Christmas-finally planted a few weeks ago and now flowering. They are so impressive. The petals are so velvety. I keep taking photos of it but none of them quite capture how it looks. Have a look at these beautiful drawings of Amaryllis on this post, and this and this by Laura Frankstone

I am continuing to draw since finishing the Danny Gregory book and have been enjoying that.

I have also learned a new technique from another book I have-about Nature Journals by L.K Ludwig. It is making photo transfers with water-a bit hit and miss but when it works it gives great results. I have not taken any photos as it all seems too much effort but will do soon!

Off to have another sleep now I think.

Face Tags

When I got in I needed a distraction from work stress. I am being observed tomorrow (by my headteacher and coordinator-who I feel does not know anything I don't know-younger, and has been teaching less time-but enjoys leadership roles which I do not-this is negative I know, but as I get older I resent these things!)-a regular occurence which I am used to but still don't like. Though who does? I go from what I see as a competent and fairly entertaining teacher to a grinning nervous wreck who does not behave in a normal way at all-at least in my mind. I think I have developed techniques over the years to hide this but it is how I feel. So roll on 10.30 tomorrow-the end of the observation! Anyway, my hometime stress relief was drawing/painting little blurry faces on parcel tags. (With prepared gesso ovals) I love these kind of old fashioned tags-their great brown paper colour and little strings.

All slightly mishapen and a bit lumpen-and-apart from one, quite miserable-my kind of girls!

Off to knit and watch "Silent Witness"-a programme only for the strong stomached!

Mushroom Witches and A Fanciful Halloween Party

In my neighbour's house...if she invites you in... ....you are led through a shadowy doorway, past portraits of her ancestors...

Aunt Fly Agaric was famous amongst mushroom witches. She usually cast kind spells such as this one to help people to see fairies...(from her spell box)

If thou woudst see fairies

Take a pint of Sallet oyle and put it in a glasse, first washing it with rose water. Then put thereto the buds of hollyhocke, of marygolde, of young hazle and the topps of wild thyme. Take the grasse of a fairy throne; then all these out into a glasse...dissolve three days in the sunne, and keep it for thy use.

Aunt Nancy was nicknamed 'The Deceiver' due to her habit of casting spells to make people think she was doing what she wasn't, such as her job! I wish she was still around to teach me a thing or two.

All my neighbour will tell me about this portrait, is that her name is 'The Blue One'. This mushroom witch must have had some dark secrets.

This is my neighbour herself, Miss Porcelain Fungus. It is a strange name and she often gets a funny look from the postman. He should watch out, or magical mushroom spells might come his way.

Porcelain showed me her spell box, and magic wand, both of which have been passed down to her. Inside the box are smaller and smaller boxes containing many spells. Here is the only one she showed me...

If thou wilt understand the birds

Associate with two fellows on the 28th day of October, and goe with dogges as to hunt. Carry home with thee the beast that thou shall find first. Prepare it with the heart of a foxe, and thou shalt understand the voice of the birds.

I thanked her, but secretly thought I may give this one a miss.

I might try the fairy one though...

Porcelain demonstrated how her wand works.

She offered me a toffee apple,

and said that anyone else was welcome-

so there is your invitation!

Her spell book was on the tray,

as she likes to practice magic every day.

I was impressed with the large mushroom photo she has framed in the hallway.

It looks like a mushroom forest.

What a strange Saturday, as not only did I visit a Mushroom Witch, but now I am off to visit a magical Halloween party at Vanessa's! What fun! See you there or somewhere!

Thinking

I did some drawing today, using pen and ink which I love. This drawing has had colour and texture added in photoshop, and I like how she has come out. She looks very thoughtful. I am thinking I need a change, but cannot work out how this could come about. I just know I have had enough of the ever increasing demands on me at work, and cannot see how to change this. Oh well, drawing is soothing anyway.

Winding Tales From a Tired Mind

I was going to go to bed early tonight as a sore throat has arrived this afternoon and I thought I could do with an early night. Then other things intervened-playing with the kitten, eating delicious prawns and rice, colouring in my snakey drawing and then having a revelation about names. I have a tall thin sketch book-from my Mum for Christmas, and began using it the other day with my list of hang words. It cries out for long or thin things, and snakes came to mind. I find snakes beautiful-maybe because my Chinese star sign is the snake-or maybe just because they are beautiful! I have a small collection of silver snakes-earrings, a pendant and two rings. They lend themselves well to jewellery design. I was going to do lots of long straight snakes but then I looked in a source book for snake ideas and saw so many tempting coiled ones.

I started to colour the drawing last night and kitten helped me.

Names are still bugging us and we were talking about them tonight when Andy suddenly said Cassiopeia. I remembered that the people I got her from had called her Cassie but I had not liked that (surprise, surprise!) and so we have had the two weeks of indecision. Andy called Cassie, and she looked. Maybe she recognises it! I looked up Cassandra as I could not remember the story. Then I looked up Cassiopeia as I was a bit shaky on that too. Neither story is particularly happy-but I loved the part about snakes and her ears, and hearing the future! And I have been drawing snakes! I got her kind of by chance, so maybe her name should have elements of coincidence or fate in too. I also love the part about understanding the language of animals! Also I think cats have such a dramatic streak that classic tales from mythology might be a suitable source.
Cassandra

In Greek mythology, Cassandra (Greek: Κασσάνδρα, "she who entangles men",[1] also known as Alexandra[2]) was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. In an alternative version, she spent a night at Apollo's temple, at which time the temple snakes licked her ears clean so that she was able to hear the future. This is a recurring theme in Greek mythology, though sometimes it brings an ability to understand the language of animals rather than an ability to know the future.[3] However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions. She is a figure both of the epic tradition and of tragedy, where her combination of deep understanding and powerlessness exemplify the tragic condition

Next I googled 'Cassie' and one of the popular culture references was this title. Again, most appropriate as she is crazy!

Finding Cassie Crazy

Lastly, a snippet from the tale of Cassiopeia-the kitten is upside down for quite a bit of the time too!

'Since Poseidon thought that Cassiopeia should not escape punishment, he placed her in the heavens in such a position that, as she circles the celestial pole in her throne, she is upside-down half the time.' (Cassiopeia)
I hope I have made sense here-it all makes sense to me! I am usually pretty indecisive but I think I am beating even my own records here! I will let you know in a week if Cassie sticks!

Terrible flash photography which I have failed to edit

The title of the drawing is inspired by that ridiculous film 'Snakes on a Plane'! I also like the name 'Snake Plisken' from another film-a much better one-'Escape From New York' I love that film!

Drawing

As well as drawing at home I draw at work a lot, and for work. I like drawing for children, with them and alongside them. We have great conversations through drawing-the different ways that we all see the world is apparent through what we draw. This week we planned a storytelling activity based on very simple line drawings to represent family. I started with the afternoon carpet today by just getting out the Mum, Dad, boy and girl. I just wanted to see what the children thought so I asked who these people were. Straight away one of them said "That's my Mum!" I find it fascinating that a simple stick figure is so obviously representing something universal. As for the storytelling we didn't get very far today-but we did establish that they live in a house and that Lucien-a new child this term, has a chinchilla! Not unrelated as we were talking about pets by this time. I will see what happens tomorrow! I just like this drawing of a tree that I did out in the garden one day so I am using it!
girl

mum

The last few evenings have been taken up with visiting OWOH blogs and I am only on number 101! It is very time consuming but fun to see so many new ones! I have a growing list of blogs to revisit. In between times I have been working on another drawing/painting for the Misty Mawn class. This one is done with a water soluble 8b pencil and white acrylic. I found it very hard to control which made it interesting. Not sure about the result-I think another very beautiful girl has been Sarahed! Oh dear.

A Mad Hatter's Tea Party!!!!

Candace of Eye Candy is hosting a tea party! Visit her to find more party people! Welcome to my tiny mad party! I have drawn some mad hats for the occasion in a most appropriate book-with Alice on the cover meeting the Queen. Maybe this is when she is talking about believing impossible things.

Before the hat parade-a mad fact and a beautiful mad poem! This book has been designated as my book of noticings and madness-and I didn't remember this until I found it again the other day-perfect! Now for the hat parade-each of the small hat wearers is interested to find out which hat is preferred-but that is only because they are quite vain and silly-so don't feel obliged to tell them.

Hope you enjoyed the hats. I am away for a few days now so will visit everyone when I get back. I am going to miss shadow shot sunday again-next week I will be there! Have a lovely weekend.