Elements 8

I have been so very busy this year I really have let my Digital Art go and I have become very rusty, but it’s surprising how quickly it all comes back. My favourite programme for many years was  Corel Draw, then came Paint Shop Pro. I think I may be having a little change because I’ve been playing with Photoshop Elements 8 this afternoon. I’ve had this programme for 12 months, but had no time to play.

Grids and Lines combined.

Sketches and ideas

A grid of leaves.

Another grid of leaves.

Developed work from grids.

More grids.

There’s a new post on SerenTex.

Plenty of grid ideas here.

My sketchbook ideas

I haven’t started work on my Sketchbook Project for Art House yet, but it’s constantly in my thoughts and I have loads of ideas to work on. I chose Lines and Grids as my subject and I have taken loads of photos.

This one was inspired by my striped t-shirt lying on the chair.

Here I have the shore line.

Curved lines.

A grid from Plas Tan y Bwlch.

Another grid.

Journey home

Christine drove me home from West Wales and as we were going through Llanrwst I decided we should stop for a meal at Tu Hwnt i'r Bont(Beyond the Bridge).

It’s a lovely old cottage . Can you see the windows? The food is very good too. There is a gallery upstairs and I took some photos of the small windows.

This is the bridge, it’s very old and narrow.

Then we took a walk to stretch our legs and visited St Grwst church, which gives the town its name.

I found this small tombstone very touching.

I just couldn’t get over the beautiful texture of the old slate flooring.

This will come in useful for my Lines and Grids sketchbook.

I must find out why there’s a skull and crossbones in the church.

This is on the ceiling.

This just happened and it seems to add to the image.

I feel sure this householder will not object to the photo of their cat sleeping in the window among all the cat ornaments. There was a sign in another window saying ‘A spoilt cat lives here’.

I hope you enjoyed our visit to Llanrwst?

West Wales Weekend(long)

I have just spent a most enjoyable weekend in the company of a wonderful group of ladies teaching them some Embellisher techniques. We worked hard, laughed a lot and ate some delicious food. Especially the Muffins cooked daily for us by Miriam.

The course was held here in Christine’s lovely large farmhouse kitchen.

This is the group from another angle.

Work in progress.  My one regret is not taking photos of all the work done. Most of it samples in their files but Chris made a bag(below) and almost finished a second.

Here is Ceinwen looking at some of the folders.

I must show you 2 special friends I made over the weekend.

This is Edward, he's a Cardigan Corgi and a Blue Merle. I was wearing cropped trousers and he must have liked my body lotion because he loved licking me all the way up from my toes as far as the hem of my crops.

This is Myfi, a huge New Zealand Kuni Kuni sow. She was wonderful and even sat to beg for titbits and I walked up the hill to have a chat with her each day.

After the class finished on Sunday we went to Chris’ Welsh cottage for a BBQ cooked for us by Barry. Where I was entertained, and I do mean entertained. Thank you Barry.

Barry is on the left and Miriam, the talented Muffin lady on the right who both managed to keep a straight face while I took this photo. They made quite a team.

This is Chris.

This is Ian who is Christine’s husband. He was so patient with a houseful of strange women upsetting his peaceful life. He even took a day off to drive all the way up to Conwy to take me down to West Wales and I am very grateful to him. I had a most interesting and educational journey down. You will notice that he has a strange instrument in his hand, this is Barry’s Tinkulely.

Below is the Pindrop Band, a very popular band in West Wales and they are fans and I have just become a fan too. They are worth listening to.

This post has become far too long, so I must blog again and show you what we saw on the way home. Christine drove me home.

Catching up

It seems I have a lot of catching up to do. Life takes over at times and I have just hit a rather busier patch than usual. I have to go back to the weekend before last, back in June when I stayed at Plas Tan y bwlch for 4 days. Well actually I only slept there 3 nights. A group of us from SerenTex and some of our friends went on a little retreat as we do every year around this time.

This was the view from my window and I just love that meandering river even after I was told it was not the original course of the river but designed by the owners of Plas to stop flooding.
This year we asked Mary to bring her special printing stuff with her and most of us enjoyed it. Mary herself used it to develop her latest Shell project, but I just enjoyed making a mess with everything working at my fast and furious pace with the intention of gathering ideas for my own project. I have joined the Art House Sketchbook project and have chosen Lines and Grids as I’d already collected a lot of ideas during the last few years.
I took some photos.



Used my Sketchbook, but not ‘The’ Sketchbook yet.


I hope to share a bit more with you later especially on the SerenTex blog. Please use the links in the sidebar to get to the SerenTex and Cymraes Greadigol blogs if you would like to see a little more of what I've been doing.