‘Lino’ Print Owls

I’ve been wanting to try lino printing for quite some time now but I don’t have the correct tools or the inclination to buy the tools.  I do however, have a pack of vinyl floor tiles and a series of gouges that Alasdair uses for his carvings.

Ever the type to make do with what I have, I decided to see if the vinyl tiles could do as good a job as lino.  I think the outcome is passable although nowhere near as clear as those I’ve seen from lino…this could also be to do with my lack of ink and brayer and my improvisation of kids paint and a spongy paint roller (also designed for kids).

Not at all bad though.  I printed the outline shape and then cut the same piece of vinyl further to create lines, which I then painted black.  I love all the extra bits that are created from the carving.  Many would remove these ridges but I think they add something of a handmade quality.

I’m thinking of combining this technique with some of my handmade paper and a more elaborate picture for some more luxurious prints.

Plimsolls … now there’s a blast from the past!

I don’t think I’ve owned a pair of plimsolls since, ooooo, forever!  If I had to make a guess then I might suggest it’s been at least 25 years, certainly not since leaving primary school!  This is something that’s been pulling at me for some time to do and, Mmmmmm, there’s nothing quite like the smell of new plimsolls is there – or does that just make me a bit weird!?

Anyway I’ve been noticing images of customised plimsolls ever since I joined up with DeviantArt a couple of years back and I’ve got to say they are something of an inspiration, even if my own initial efforts are a far cry from those featured in that link – these pictured here really are an initial effort.  If nothing else it gave me a chance to try out taking photo’s in my new light-box!

The lass has made me promise to do her a pair and I can envisage something in pink/lilac with love hearts for her and she seems happy with the idea.  Of course if I do a pair for her then no doubt the lad will want a pair too so I guess I’ll need to do two more pairs at the very least.

Scottish wild daisies

Jolene loves these wild daisies that flower in masses up and down the sides of roads, motorways and any other wild verge they can gain a foothold in … little wonder then that a small colony has established themselves in the garden!?

They are tremendously nice, although they’re currently competing with some ground elder that I’d remove if I could summon the energy and if it would stop raining for a wee while, although even the ground elder puts out some lovely wee flowers:

Still, I think we’d much rather have these ones:

I actually went a bought a close approximation of the wild daisy, no doubt a cultivar of some sort – the marguerite daisy – before the wild ones sprang up:

Anyway, that’ll be some daisies then …

Andy Scott’s M8 Heavy Horse and other sculptures

I’ve always been a fan of the Heavy Horse sculpture that stands on the West bound side of the motorway on the way out of Glasgow, it’s particularly impressive when illuminated on a clear night.  There are a huge number of fantastic photo’s featuring the sculpture out there on the web although I particularly like this one from David May’s Flickr photostream:

I was certainly aware that Andy Scott has completed a number of other high profile sculptures, but to be honest I hadn’t actually seen other examples of his work until I started writing this article and conducting the obligatory google searches.  One of the first sites I came across was Andy’s own website where you can download a number of pictures depicting his work, such as this fine example, ‘Arabesque’:

Andy has completed a number of fine sculptures but just to give you a sense of scale I thought I might share this image that happened across on Zimbio.com

According to Zimbio, this is the worlds largest example of a horse sculpture.  It represents one of two heads Andy made, two Kelpies, which were subsequently placed at the entrance to the Forth and Clyde Canal.

{image source}

Kelpies themselves are an interesting string to Scottish folklore, but I’ll let you read about them yourself before I digress any further:

{image source}

Japanese rice field art

It’s said that, ‘adversity is the mother of all ingenuity’, and when the small town of Inakadate (pronounced ee-NAH-kah-dah-tay) fell upon hard times that certainly seemed to be the case.  Struggling with a lack of industry and a public debt of more than three times it’s annual budget the town looked towards tourism as a potential source of much needed income, I can’t imagine they expected such success when they happened upon the idea of of using different colours of rice to create football field sized works of art.

In 2009 the works led to an estimated 170,000 visitors to the town, whose population is a mere 8,450.  A huge triumph in terms of visitor numbers even if they haven’t fully realised a method to capitalise on the economic potential of such large numbers of visitors – the council took $70,000 worth of donations, although you would have to imagine that local businesses have benefited from a surge in custom from the passing trade.

You can read the full article in the New York Times.

more flowers … less fairs

In the last 4 weeks we’ve had both of our booked craft fairs whipped out from under our feet, due to no fault of our own I hasten to add.  The first thanks to the council library failing to sort out the right licence from, well, the council; the second being cancelled for who knows what reason.  It’s not like it’s the end of the world but it is just a tad frustrating!

In fact the only ‘fair’ we’ve been to recently was the Rosneath Highland Games, although that was only to spectate, not that I would struggle to throw the hammer or toss the caber you understand but I wouldn’t want to put all those big burly blokes noses out of joint by showing them up …

… I didn’t even get any decent pics of the games that I would be happy to share on here, so – I’m afraid – that means more pictures of flowers!  This remains a craft blog, honestly, even if it does look more and more like a gardening one!!

It’s pink … what more can I say!

Marigold

Rocket (I believe)

They’re white, and flowery … very pretty!

It was the lad’s birthday a couple of weeks ago so there’s a cake post waiting to be written, coming soon I assure you!

even more GrownStuff and a give-away

… and still I’m gripped by an inability to craft, seized as I am between an unfinished poly-tunnel and the start of the school summer holidays.

Progress on the poly-tunnel is slow, although there is at least progress with the door-frames having been erected since my last update, leaving only the base-rail to attach, the cover to apply and finally the door to attach.  On the bright side I have discovered an aquilegia hiding under a willow hedge, I’ve wanted aquilegia in the garden for an age and knew that if I was patient it would make it’s way up here from the village below.

We also have one of these (below) in the garden although, I’m damned if I know what it is …

… in fact, it’s bugging me so much that I’m willing to give the first person who can identify it a £5 discount off anything with a price-tag of £10 or more from the shop.  All you need to do is convince me that your identification is correct by providing me with a link/s to somewhere that shows pictures with the correct name attached.  Just leave a comment at the bottom.   That should be easy enough if you already know what it is :)

Also today the lad has been playing with dung beetles …

Poly-tunnel building

I mentioned previously that I’ve been busy putting together the poly-tunnel (amongst other things) hence the dearth of actual crafts of late, although I think the tunnel may actually qualify under the auspices that it is ‘Stuff’ what has been ‘Made’!?  Failing that Jolene has been working on a couple of bits n’ bobs that should be finished in the next few days so we might actually return to some real craft stuff soon :)

The tunnel’s steel work has been relatively simple to erect, in fact I can honestly say that the most difficult part was digging quarrying the holes for the ground tubes and anchor plates through a rock rich clay mixture.  Fortunately the father-in-law volunteered to help, and I must say it was help that was hugely appreciated, it took the whole day to finish digging the holes and get the tubes in but by the end of Saturday that part was done:

Having said that I did need to dig a couple back up the next day to re-align them, but with the soil already loosened by the previous days efforts it only took a half hour to do, unlike the solid hour it had previously taken to dig each whole.

On Sunday, Jolene and I set about putting up the hoops and although I had to dash out to get a titanium drill bit to allow us to drill holes for the screws we progressed well and we managed to get the basic frame up along with the corner stabilisers and door rails, even it did mean that I had been on the go from 9am until 7pm without any real break:

On Monday I was at it again, fortunately the lass was content to entertain herself and sat watching for most the day so that I was able to press on and attach all the crop bars and storm braces.

All that’s left to do now is put together the door frames, doors, attach the base rails and then wait for a nice calm day that happens to coincide with some spare bodies so that we can get the cover on.  Of course once that’s done I’ll need to install some raised beds and a staging area … we might actually get something growing in it by 2012!!

Aside from weeds I mean:

more GrownStuff

I’ve just browsed through the last page worth of posts that we’ve made on here and can’t help noticing that the amount of MadeStuff has somewhat tailed off of late, indeed, I currently have NO crafting projects under-way at the minute.  I’ve been too busy cutting the grass …

What I do have on the go at the moment is the building of our poly-tunnel, although I suspect that this is going to take more than the ‘couple of days’ that the instructions suggest it might take!

Meanwhile though garden has been coming along and, amongst other things I’m having to shift the wood from the wood shed so that I can tear it down (it’s falling apart anyway) and put in a chicken coop for the chickens we will hopefully get in the next few months (or next year) once I’ve sorted out the fencing.

Here’s a wee sample of some of the current blooms in the garden …

Wild poppy

London Pride

Our single aubretia bloom

Given wings, would we fly?

It seems like forever and a day since I originally thought about giving my bonnie birds wings, indeed, it seems like forever and a day since I actually started making this one!  Based around the same principles as it’s forebears I had to add some additional armature to build the wings both from a practical point of view but also to ensure that they would be strong enough to stand-up to life’s little knocks.  This is the end result

I’m reasonably pleased with the finished product although, contrary to what it looks like, I had an abstraction of a Green Finch in mind when I painted it!

{image source}

You would think that given, aside from chaffinches, that this is the only bird that visits our garden with any regularity that I’d be able to summon up an image in my minds eye and work it up on one of my bonnie birds; it seems my mind is prone to wandering when I pick up a paintbrush and the notion that I might paint anything in the fashion that I originally intended is completely lost!!

Available to buy from the shop