Pre-Party Bones

I am really looking forward to the Halloween Party at a Fanciful Twist on Saturday. It is my birthday on Sunday though and in this world we are going to my Mum's on Saturday afternoon, staying there overnight and having a birthday/Christmas dinner on Sunday. This is because my brother is home from travelling and will be off again in a couple of weeks and so will miss Christmas. So I want to prepare my posts! I am getting the hang of layout but am still not finding it easy.

I have a few little things for the party-a mixture of things I have collected and certain characters who cannot wait to be there.

Well, back to the things I have collected. I have been looking around my house and have realised that I may be quite ghoulish and death obsessed, due to my collections of bones and skulls. There is something about a good skull that I can't resist. The sheep's skull I have comes from Scotland and I found it on a walk on a very grey day. Unfortunately it was not quite free of flesh and I had to boil it in a saucepan with bleach. I do not recommend that as a course of action. Yeuch. I have a little fox skull from my garden in one of our flats in London. My deer skull was from Greenwich market (but from France originally) and my woodcock skull was from ebay. Ebay is absolutely full of skulls and I have to not look. The best skull I have seen was in a restaurant window display and was an elephant. Oh how I wanted that skull!

I also have various bones that I have found on the bank of the river Thames on beach combing expeditions. Most of the bits of china, clay pipe and oyster shells you find on the river are Victorian so I presume the bones are too. I polished them with furniture polish so they smell nice. I have never made anything with them but they have a lovely tactile quality that makes me pleased they are mine. They also sound quite chime like when they knock together. The little skulls are some bone beads I found at the market last Sunday.

Sunny Saturday

This Saturday we visited the Geffrye Museum in East London. I drove, which is quite brave for me as I don't often drive north of the river! We managed to find somewhere to park-£4 an hour! but convenient. It was a really beautiful hot and sunny day. On the way to the museum there were some amazingly dressed Hoxton people. I am too shy to take photos of strangers so alas none of those! I did notice the returning trend of lumberjack shirts, lots of grey, strange huge glasses, very skinny jeans, and a variety of plimsolls in various colours, some of them lace up versions of the ones I used to wear at school. There was also a Halloweenish selection of graffiti on offer which I did take photos of.

Black cats...

Skeleton man...

Zombie man...

and heart faced ghosts.




I also loved these heads in the window...

and these monsterish railings.

The museum is fascinating, showing the changes in interior use and design over the centuries. It is a very peaceful setting considering its location. You walk through a hedge and a gate off of a busy, dusty road, into a hushed, green space. This feeling of peace was what I liked best about the museum.

I couldn't take photos inside but here are a selection of postcards. I love the Victorian painting called "The Appointment", by Rebecca Soloman where you can see the young man who has called for her in the mirror. There is a set of lights exactly like those in the museum. I also loved the polar bear which was in the 1930s room setting ( I think!). It is by John Skeaping for Wedgewood.

I love the logo of the museum-a keyhole that we are peeping through.

Very worth a visit!

Collections

I think I take after my Dad in my need to collect things. I never mean to start, then I get two of something and that's it, my excuse to accumulate more and more. I live in quite a small flat which I have filled up with stuff. ( I have a very tolerant partner who even claims to like some of it. He has got a big music collection and, bizarrely, a collection of books on Cromwell from his Dad, and one on Napolean from himself) I really like all these things but sometimes wish I could live without them. But I can't. So that's it. I read an article in artful blogging by a woman who had the same problem as me (it's a problem but, as problems go, a good one) and she saw her blog partly as an extra room. I liked that idea. I could keep my collections here.

Anyway, I opened the flap on a kind of bureau thing which was my great Aunt's and is used as a bookshelf, standing on top of another bookshelf, and found my popper beads. I love popper beads. They look like sweets, are unbreakable and can be mixed up together. My first ones were blue. I had to go on and collect red, yellow, then the secondary colours, then black and white. I have also found some pearl ones and some lovely amber coloured ones.

Illustration Friday - 'Sugary'

The theme for this week made me think of that rhyme about what little girls and boys are made of. I always used to think it was a bit unfair on little boys. I am not sure that the little girls standing on the cake are that sweet-they look a bit moody to me. I also thought about those cake shops and stalls that you see a lot of these days-the ones with the yummy looking and beautiful cupcakes that cost about £3 each, and so would justify having a label bigger than themselves!

Windmill Story Part One

Once upon a time, let's say 1965, there was a little wooden windmill, made in Switzerland, for sale in Holland, shiny, new and desirable. It was not just an ordinary windmill, but a musical one. Wind the sails and it will play a merry tune. A young couple are on holiday and buy the windmill to remind them of their happy time, wandering around Holland.

The little windmill goes home with them to England, it stays in their house for forty three years, occasionally being wound to remind them of that distant time, especially when the grandchildren call round. One day however, for whatever sad reason, the windmill finds its way to the charity shop. It sits on the shelf, looking tatty and unloved with its little sail just about clinging on. It is only £4! It plays a beautiful tune! I must have it. It comes home with me, to sit on my shelf for a while, ocasionally to be wound, until an idea slowly begins to form.

To be continued....

Gritty Jane Doll

This is the first doll I made for the course. I loved making her, and watching her come to life. I found the sculpting the hardest as I have not done that before. Lips-so tricky and eventually, so crooked! What I really loved was being able to make a figure that I could paint on and I really want to try making just painted dolls. I also really enjoyed the aging process for the dress where you soak it in coffee, rearrange the pleats and then bake it in the oven. I did give it a little rinse as I was worried about the coffee smell. It does smell slightly but is quite pleasant-a bit like fisherman's friends lozenges.

I just can't decide on a name-any ideas?

Illustration Friday - 'Packed'

This is my third attempt to get this right and I am getting very cross! I am having trouble editing my post once I have done it. Considering how user friendly most things are these days I am finding blogger very frustrating. It may be just me!

My picture was inspired by thoughts of lifts with too many people in them(scary!), and my life, which is packed with all the things mentioned in the picture. It is painted on a 5x6" canvas using black gesso and acrylic.