Easter Parade -

There’s a saying, ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. 

And when I look at the Easter Cards I’ve designed for my online stores, I wonder whether maybe that could apply to me! 

I’ve used no fewer than nine different mediums – though when trying to define my ‘signature style’, people told me that no matter what medium I used, they would always recognize my work - though nobody told me what it was that they recognized and maybe I'd rather not know!

I wonder whether that’s true of this hotchpotch of Easter Greeting Cards that I’ve made into a kind of ‘Easter Parade’ – or whether it really matters?

(of course there's also some digital input in the borders and lettering on all of these Easter Greeting Cards)

Watercolour

Easter Daffodils Card, From Our Home to Yours by helikettle

Gouache

Spring Flowers Easter Card for a Grandmother by helikettle

Watercolour Pencils

Easter Card with Pink Hyacinths by helikettle
 

Pen and Wash

(Ink and Watercolour)

Easter Bunnies Card for a Grandson by helikettle
 

Soft Pastels

Easter Greeting Card, Riverbank in Spring by helikettle
 

Oil Pastels

Scarlet Tulips Customizable Greeting Card by helikettle
 

Hand-painted Paper Collage

'Spring Garden' Easter Card - French Greeting by helikettle

A mixture of Hand-painted and Digital

Daffodils and Polka Dots, Easter Card by poshandpainterly

and finally - a Photograph

Easter Card with Daffodils and Church by helikettle

The trouble is, I get bored sticking to one medium and when there are so many to choose from, it seems such a waste not to try them all!

I don't think very many Easter Cards are sent in the UK - at least, I don't know anyone who sends them. But if you are looking for Easter cards to send, there's a good chance you'll find something you like in my Easter Parade of different styles!

Click

HERE

for more

EASTER CARDS

and

Easter Bunny Mugs

Finding Art on your Doorstep

Doodled beginnings of an illustration of the Emerson quote

“Art is not to be found by touring to Egypt, China or Peru; if you cannot find it at your own door, you will never find it.” Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Some twelve years ago I decided to see how I got on with trying to sell my pastel paintings, in effect ‘coming out’ as an artist. 

When I told a friend about this, her immediate, excited reply was to tell me how lucky I was because this would mean that I could go to Venice. Although Venice is one of the few places I would love to spend some time, I was totally at a loss to see the connection between trying to make a living from my art and going to Venice. 

I still am – and I was delighted to come across Emerson’s quote because it expresses my own approach to art. I don’t believe that we need to travel to find inspiration; for me at least, inspiration can strike at any moment, no matter where I am or how familiar or apparently 'ordinary' my surroundings.

I might suddenly notice the play of the light on the lace curtains in my bedroom –

- or, probably more often, something outdoors, in my local area or especially in my little garden, simply begs me to paint it or to make it the basis of a pattern or greeting card design:

Lipstick Pink Roses

Periwinkles

Mother's Day Card - 'Tulips'
   

Tulips in the park I cross each time I go shopping

So, over the coming months, I plan to introduce you to the ‘art’ that I've found ‘at my own door’ – or perhaps just a little bit further afield - beginning, tomorrow, with some Roses at Christmas:

PS By trial and error, I've learnt a valuable tip today! Next time I attempt to illustrate a quotation, I'll definitely make things much easier for myself if I put the text in place first and illustrate around it!

.......

Click

HERE

for some of the

Gifts and Greetings for Gardeners

that I've designed

Surfacing Pattern Designers 'Spring' Showcase -

This month my fellow graduates of the Art & Business of Surface Pattern Design course have worked on patterns for spring.

Once again, I'm struck by the variety of interpretations, though the pastels we associate with the springtime do seem to link them. Here they are in alphabetical order of first name:

Andrea Rincon

Anchobee Designs

www.anchobee.com

Papalote

Carol Robinson

Daisies

Chloe Wood

www.chloe-wood.co.uk

Bunnies

Daniela Butonoi

http://ohsocreative.blogspot.com/

Spring is here!

Jan Shepherd

https://www.facebook.com/thepatternlab 

Spring

Judy Adamson

http://www.zazzle.com/helikettle*

White Rabbits and Primroses

Julie Ansbro

Sky Blue Spring

Laura Escalante Diseno

https://www.facebook.com/lauraescalantediseno

Paper Flower Garland

Lisa Deighan

Spring Chicken

Liz Minton

http://www.lizminton.com

Spring

Mel Pope

Spring has Sprung

Mi Jung Lee

http://www.mijungdesign.com/

Tulips

Natacha Devaud

www.theLazyGiraffe.com

Big Spring Flower

Trina Esquivelzeta

http://surfacehug.com/

Spring

A big 
THANK YOU
 to all the artists who have contributed to this post!

Next month's themes are 'Vikings' and/or 'Pantone's Poppy Red'
(Low Res images to me by Sunday, May 5th, if possible,
but I'll do my best to accommodate any 'stragglers')

Summer came early!

Bailey Park, Abergavenny, April 8th

Yes, I know we English are known for our partiality to discussing the weather, but the past few weeks really have been extraordinary!

Most of  March was sunny and warm - sitting-outside-in-shirtsleeves weather! - and the driest month for 50 years, apparently. When the month ended with a few days of wind and rain, I thought it was 'going out like a lion' and that we'd revert to our normal, less than wonderful, British weather. 

But no, we've been enjoying almost wall-to-wall sunshine and daytime temperatures that should belong at the end of May, even though it seems such a short time ago that we were comparing the depth of our snow on Twitter! It looks as if it's on the change now, though and maybe that was our summer?

Bailey Park, Abergavenny, 8th April

 
Most of the daffodils are long gone and dead-headed and these tulips in the park won't last much longer so I 'snapped' them on my way back from shopping on Friday.

So now I think I've posted images of the park that I cross to go shopping in all seasons.

Bailey Park, Abergavenny, 8th April

But here's the big shock!

I opened my back door to the garden a couple of mornings ago and, just outside, I found this!

Iceland Poppy, early April, 2011

The back of the seed packet says that it should start flowering in June, but this is one from last year that survived the record low winter temperatures - although you can see that the pot was less hardy! - so maybe that, as well as the remarkable weather, is why it is flowering so early?

Meanwhile, I've sown some Icelandic Poppy seeds, hoping that I might be lucky and get some pink ones. But the seeds are tiny and have germinated in clumps so I'm afraid a great many of them will have to be discarded. That's something I don't feel very comfortable doing - I have a book called, 'Plants are like People' and I tend to agree!  

I've also spotted buds on several of my roses and I have the feeling that I shall soon be working on photographic images for my greeting cards etc rather than drawings and paintings. Last summer was like that and the poppies were an especially fruitful source of designs. The one above featured on coffee mugs and even Keds shoes as well as greeting cards - as you can see here.

Just for the record...

I've been out and about a lot this week, away from the computer. On my way to the industrial estate where I get my printer paper, I discovered a little paved garden, hidden behind a high wall to the side of the tithe barn. Even as early as Monday, it was full of daffodils, whereas those in my garden are still few and far between. I didn't have my camera with me but today was such a warm and sunny day - hot even! - that I popped out to take some photos of them:

It turned out to be more difficult than I expected as there was a slight breeze so they were 'tossing their heads' in true Wordsworth fashion!

While I had my camera out I remembered that it is the equinox, so I decided to record the flowers that are blooming in my garden - some hyacinths in the window boxes:

The first tentative buds of the white alyssum:

early miniature tulips -

- and even some brave-looking wallflowers, growing by a wall, of course!

I can see that I'll soon be getting out my watercolours and doing some 'proper' painting!