Marrakech inspiration

This January after my busiest period yet, I took the family off to Marrakech for some lovely sunshine and experiences. I highly recommend it as a winter holiday, it was hot, beautiful, very safe (as long as you kept out of the way of the speeding Honda C90s) and cheap! Her are a few shots of the beautiful Majorelle garden and of course camels.

This summer I was invited by the National Trust to exhibit to a large group of their buyers in the North East, this was my display, we only had a 3' x 3' space to play with but I came away with having 4 pieces selected for their shops, so not a bad day!

Mistress finished

Finally got my lady finished, complete with gardening fork, I used her for my ad in the CRAFTS magazine this month for the BCTF. She is just waiting for her partner, a lovely if not a little down trodden man with a hoe.

Mistress is the master

Working away on my lady again, nearly finished the verdigris and just need to warm up her skin tones a little.

Visual Artist and Craft Maker Award

Last year I was awarded a grant from Creative Scotland to produce some figurative work and finally I have managed to squeeze it in, I want to produce 4 busts of gardening characters and this is the first, below is a sketch of the original design based on an old wives tale 'When the mistress is the master the parsley grows the faster', at first glance you see this pretty (well she will be hopefully when I have finished her) lady gardener holding her gardening fork, but after reading the tale you will notice that she is a little more menacing and is holding the fork more as a weapon. Scary!!

I have made a wire cage for her body and modelled a face and hand from modelling clay, now begins the long process of covering her with leaves and old china from my garden and washed up bits out of the sea. I love the idea of having bits of old pottery fragments from my garden reused in a gardening figure.
Over the next week I will keep adding more piccys as she develops.

Phew! what a busy run up to Christmas, so I took myself and the family off to Barcelona, to be recharged with inspiration. What an absolutely gorgeous city and of course all the wonderful Gaudi architecture and decoration, Here are a few photos of his wonderful work and goodness can't wait to get smashing more crockery.
P.S look at those stunningly blue skies. will definitely go back, maybe just take the hubby next time though!

White house gallery

Spent this morning wrestling with my camera. taking images of the pieces I am sending to Rosie Clark at the White House Gallery, Kirkudbright, for her Winter Exhibition ( 3rd Nov - 5th Jan)