Where bloggers create – my space

Last year I gave up the space in which I’d been creating on and off over the last 5 years and recently acquired a new space. As we’ve had the builders in over the last month I haven’t been able to make my space into exactly how I envisage it. It needs a new coat of paint on the walls and pine cupboards, and maybe a change of curtains wouldn’t go amiss but there’s plenty of time for that. Many of my books and supplies are still packed up in boxes in the garage as are most of my treasured ornaments so think of it as a work-in-progress.

At least my treasured curved glass fronted cupboard survived the move from one foreign country to another as did the wonderful chest of drawers which belonged to my father. I can’t find the key to the small triangular corner cupboard although I was sure I put it in a safe place …. and the beautiful glass picture based on a painting by Klimt fell over and cracked in several places.

But I’m happy here. Two large windows mean that plenty of light comes into the room but from a Feng Shui point of view the west-facing window is bad news if you are using the room to work in so I might have to do something about that. I’ve chosen to place my desk under the north-facing window. The door is in the wrong place and I’m short on wall space so the books will have go somewhere else.

From the windows to the north I can just see the sea. There is a row of vines at the bottom of the garden and 2 fig trees, a pomegranate, an apricot, a persimmon, an almond, a lemon and 2 tangerine trees in the garden. The garden, or rather the large patch of bare earth, is a canvas still to be planted but for the time being we watch what each new season will bring us. And yes, oh bliss, there is a pool for those long hot lazy days of summer.

Behind me,to the south west lies a ridge of mountains.

Being away for 3 months at the beginning of the year it’s been hard to do much creating but here are a few pieces.

Collage Obsession: mask

Collage Obsession

Collage Obsession: stamps

I love incorporating postage stamps in my work, both mixed media and digital.

sharing with Collage Obsession

Collage obsession: shades of pink

sharing with Collage Obsession

Dreams begin wherever you want

Digital Mania‘s ‘create a journal page’ challenge

where bloggers create 2014

Welcome to Where Bloggers Create 2014, hosted by Karen Valentine, a blog event encouraging us to visit each other’s creative spaces around the world.

My creative space hasn’t changed much since I participated in WBC a couple of years ago except that it seems to have accumulated more clutter! I can never bear to throw anything away just in case it might come in useful.

My creative space in 2012

However, the view from my window has changed since we did some major re-working in the garden. What was a lawn where no grass grew, because the soil was less than 10 inches deep, has been replaced with hip-high raised beds made out of the local travertine marble. These have been planted with roses, bougainvillaea and geraniums.

gifts made by my talented sister displayed on the shelf above my desk

Some of my recent creations:

In the autumn I will be getting a new studio. This is what it looks like at the moment. Although the built-in cupboards will be very handy for storing (squirrelling away) my stash, it’s very ugly. I would welcome any suggestions as to what I could do to make it more attractive. At this stage I don’t think I’ll rip it out, I would prefer to live with it for a while before doing anything drastic.

I-Spy with my little eye

The latest visual prompt to come from Tangie Baxter in her 2014 Art Journal Caravan online course was called I-Spy.

If you grew up in the UK in the 1950’s and 60’s you may remember the little books called I-Spy. I-Spy appeared in the United States on similar lines.

The I-SPY Tribe was based on the I-SPY Books, some forty small volumes that sold in hundreds of thousands. Each book covered a subject such as I-SPY Cars, I-SPY on the Pavement, I-SPY Churches, I-SPY on a Train Journey, etc. As children spotted objects such as coalhole covers, oak trees, semaphore signals, fire engines, whelks, and so on, they recorded the event in the relevant book, and gained points. Once the book was complete, it could be sent to Big Chief I-SPY for a feather and order of merit.

I managed to get a couple of these coveted badges.

Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-Spy

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1241337/I-Spy-childrens-classic-returning-bookshelves.html

If we didn’t have the books to keep us amused there was always the game, which started (often in a singsong voice) “I spy with my little eye something beginning with …..” and then everyone joined in by trying to guess what the object was that began with that particular letter that the person was looking at. The one who guessed correctly started off the next round. Letters were usually chosen at random.

This is my response to the prompt

Word games like this were a very good way of encouraging children to be more observant and it helped improve their vocabulary.

My favourite word game was one called “the Parson’s cat”. Participants worked their way through the alphabet as follows:

The Parson’s cat was (adjective) an addicted cat
His name was Algernon
and his favourite food was artichokes

The Parson’s cat was a beautiful cat
Her name was Bella
and her favourite food was Bakewell tart

(as far as I can remember in our household the Parson’s cat was always a male).

Photo Art Friday: collage

sometimes, if you’re feeling particularly brain-dead, it’s fun to let an online photo editor do all the work for you. This collage of lotus flowers was produced at http://www.fotor.com using my own photos

but if you’re up to the challenge, you might like to experiment

Collage obsession: making marks

Linda from Collage Obsession said “I am delving more and more into art journaling , paper and glue, ink, paint ,markers, and all the other ways to “make marks.” In the realm of digital art, the marks we make are digital–textures, brushes, fonts, filters and styles.”

I was intrigued by this week’s theme of making marks. I started my collage with a photo of very ancient Cambodian marks incised in stone

and overlaid it with a photo of painted wood on which time has made its mark

I then added the stitching, ink splatters and word art to get this

Collage obsession: handwriting

Sherry, of Collage Obsession, was bemoaning the fact that writing by hand seems to be a lost art so she invited us to share a creation showing handwriting.

the handwritten text in my image is part of a scan of a page from an old poetry book I found in a flea market in Belgium. Many of the pages have poems (in French) copied on to them in painstaking handwritten script. Copying such poems into books was one of the pasttimes of genteel ladies in days gone by. This entry is dated 4 October 1888. The owner of the book was a young lady called Adele and her initials are monogrammed on the cover of the book.