Movable sculpture

Wonderful, organic movable sculpture by Bernard Reyboz. Found via here.

Reyboz from Dana Sardet on Vimeo.

Beauty Mark

I have become a little fixated on 'collecting' images of unusual faces for a personal sketchbook challenge I have set for myself this August and wanted to share this fascinating picture.
It was in a 20 year old copy of National Geographic magazine that I found in a charity shop last week. Originally taken in 1922 but never published it shows a young girl from the Ainu people of Japan.
The Ainu traditionally tattooed moustaches on their daughters by rubbing soot into small knife cuts. An account from 1893 states '' It is begun with a small semi circle on the upper lip when the girl is only two or three years of age and a few incisions are added every year until she is married''. This practice was banned by the government at the turn of the 20th century but more effective than the law , was assimilation. The aboriginal Ainu lived in the far north before most of them were forced to relocate to more densely populated areas like Hokkaido. That, plus intermarriage with ethnic Japanese helped tattooed moustaches fall out of favour.

A weekly miscellany

I spent the day in Hay on Wye yesterday. For a bookaholic like me it's a real treat and as it's less than a couple of hours away I am lucky enough to go there quite often. This was a 'consolation' day out as I was planning to visit my friend Sue and see her demonstrating at Art in Action but I left it too late to book an overnight stay en route and missed the opportunity for yet another year! I was determined to treat myself with a bit of retail therapy with these couple of King Penguins from the 1950's that I collect informally. I tend to buy them specifically for the cover artwork , here provided by Paxton Chadwick on the butterfly book and Peter Shepheard with the bird book. I also treated myself to a book about textile designer and artist Robert Stewart but I'm saving it as a treat to read later. I am a huge fan of 1950's design and can see the butterfly cover design as a printed textile any day of the week.

I was eager to get home though to see what postcards have been posted this week as part of the Postman's Knock project. My offering this week was for Jo. Her theme is 'Yee Ha! Ride 'em cowboy' and I've been pondering on it for a while. This is week 9 of 11 so we're nearly at the finishing line. I've had plenty of time to gather things and pursue lots of ideas. In the end I found a book in a local charity shop on outlaws so I cut up the cover and painted it, photographed it and added one of the images inside of the outlaw Belle Starr. I then got fixated on women of the wild west and made a small accordion fold book with a few outlaws in , as well as images of Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley. It was real fun to work on but there's equal pleasure to be had in what we receive.

I had this foam card from Cathy, encrusted with seed beads, individually sewn on to it to represent the snow that Rudolph has to fly through. You have to wonder at her ingenuity and patience!

One of Cathy's signature ideas with Postman's Knock has been to include a you tube link with every card. Her choices have always been eclectic and 'spot on'. Well I had two links, one of which made me laugh so much. If you can suspend disbelief that you're sat there in glorious summer sunshine watching a video about a white Christmas then go to this link and enjoy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ooc5eJc5SHA

Because it was so warm last night we decided to try another moth trap . Now I know that these are not everyone's cup of tea and my last post about the bee bearding was a bit near the knuckle for some, so, if you are of a squeamish disposition do not read on..... but if you love the colour and variety of these beautiful things here's a selection from what we had.

Rosy Footman

Bloodvein

Mother of Pearl

The Spectacle - no points for seeing why!

Lilac Thorn

... and finally an insect we have never had in a trap before. It is a sexton beetle and we had two of them. They are nature's gravediggers as they bury down into the soil and drag down the carcasses of dead things with them - birds, rodents, other insects, you name it and they will try and bury it. They don't do this because they are naturally tidy but I won't tell you why as I don't want to get a reputation for being too gruesome!

Making a beeline....

These are some pictures from the recent Bee Bearding competition held in Hunan Province in China. The object of the exercise is to get yourself covered by as many bees as possible and the winner is the person with the heaviest swarm covering them.

Here's the winner, Wang Dalin, who won the contest by getting covered with 26.86kg of bees whilst wearing only a pair of shorts and some swimming goggles. Those strategically placed corks look like a vital accessory.

I asked my husband if he'd let his bees do this if I bought him a pair of swimming goggles and a couple of corks but he declined. My hero.

Photos via Associated Press

Testing, testing,

I recently found out that my camera can take videos but my old laptop did not support the playing of them online. With my new dongle, new laptop and Windows 7, I thought I might have a chance of posting one. I found out the other day that there are 200 regions in the UK rated for their broadband connectivity and speed with number 1 being the best. Pembrokeshire was rated 195th out of 200 so I don't know if I'll ever get the power to post too many videos but I am testing the theory with this short piece!

Over at my friend Sue's blog you'll find a post about a great trip we had yesterday, getting up close to ravens , falcons, miscellaneous birds and even meerkats. This is a brief video of a pair of ravens in their enclosure. You may not get a true impression of their size but believe me, they were huge!

My week....

I seem to have done lots this past week. I think the sunshine always makes me more alert and willing to get on with things. On Monday I went to an exhibition of landscape art by local students which was OK but a little disappointing. On Tuesday I had my final assessment for my final module this year at college. I have not enjoyed it but at least I passed. I had a first for my sketchbook work but missed a first for my paintings by 5 marks. I was just relieved it was all over. Painting abstract landscapes has not been easy. I love atmospheric, intuitive and emotive painting but this module has been hard for me. Time off now for the rest of the summer to consider what to do next but then came Wednesday when I finished off my offering for Joanna in the Postmans Knock project.

Joanna's theme is collecting and I had a hoard of sewing bits and pieces along with an old book I bought last year called 'A Needle and Thread'. Well Joanna is a textile artist so I decided to create a box within the book for her. It was a book that had only cost £1 in a flea market and I took the innards out, made a replacement foamcore stucture, papier mached it and then painted it gold to resemble the original page edges. Then I filled it with illustrations and a collection of needles and spools of threads. I posted it early this week on Thursday because I wanted to make sure it got there in time. Friday was a day spent visiting friends all over the place and then came Saturday....

Time to be on the receiving end of Postman's Knock and I was sent this lovely piece by Chrissie. It is a piece of fabric that she has shibori dyed in an indigo vat and then embroidered onto with delicate seedheads. A perfect interpretation of my theme which is 'taking flight'. When we all started this project I thought it would take ages to complete but there are only three more cards to make now. I shall have to find something else to do once it is all over !

Well, one of the things we needed to do was catch up on our moth trapping. We've been a bit lax this summer, having traps but not always recording everything so we decided to make a proper effort this weekend and have a trap last night. We had over 90 moths in it and here are a few:

A beautiful privet hawk moth

Garden Tiger

Buff Arches

Burnished Brass

...and a Beautiful Golden Y

At the moment I'm taking a breather from the garden. All of sudden there seems to be more weeds than flowers and my husband and I have been out there on and off all morning. The moth trap is safely covered in the shade and later we will release them to carry on where they left off. I suppose I ought to get back out there and carry on where I left off too..... Hope you all have enjoyable busy weeks ahead!

Time out

I bought a new laptop a couple of months ago as my old one was definitely giving up the ghost. Sadly it developed problems so they changed it for another.... which developed problems so they changed it for another..... which developed problems so they..... yes, yes, you get the picture I'm sure. Well, every new laptop needed Orange, my dongle provider to get me online. They did this every time until the advent of the 5th (yes FIVE laptops later) they suddenly told me that my dongle doesn't work with Windows 7. It transpires that all the problems I have been having were not with the hardware but the dongle so I asked for another. In order to keep the package I have I must get it from Orange who have to get it from Japan, where of course, things are trying to return to normal. So, it is out of stock and who knows when it will come.

So, I struggle on with the old kit and hence, blogging has become a luxury. I manage to leave comments but my connection is so poor I wait ages to read blogs before I can do so. I have not been wasting my time though. I may have watched a little too much tennis in the past fortnight but I've also been painting and getting my work together for the assessment module of my abstract landscape course which ends next Tuesday. Forgive me for not showing you my work. I seem to have a reticence for displaying anything I draw or paint. I don't know why. I'm not brilliant but I am happy with what I do. Perhaps it's because with abstracts you either love it or hate it. Who knows.

I've been going to quite a few exhibitions locally to see the landscape work of other artists. I was bowled over by an exhibition of artist Roger Cecil and yesterday I got to see orginal works of John Piper up close and personal. It was a real treat. There were screenprints and lithographs of his time in Pembrokeshire and one I fell in love with was a lithograph of Llangloffan Baptist Chapel. It was £1750 , so outside of my budget but it was a place I'd never seen so we set out last night to find it. It was a fascinating building in the middle of nowhere and I feel it might be somewhere I might make my own print of. As it was a beautiful, still and warm evening we drove on a couple of miles to the coast at Abereiddy and had a walk to the Blue Pool. The place was full of reed warblers and barbecuers enjoying this glorious weekend. The sea was like a millpond and it served to remind me why so many artists find inspiration here in Pembrokeshire.

I hope to show you more of what I've been up to as the summer progresses but I need a better connection for that. Hopefully normal service will be resumed soon....... In the meantime, enjoy the views!