Birdjoy

These starlings  were making a very pleasant noise sat amongst the trees, tweeting & chirping, it was quite a moment to be in and savour.  There were many more birds than what you see in the picture, but they began to fly away as I slowly approached.

What they were doing in such large numbers I have no idea....they couldn't be pre-roosting as it was too early in the day. This led me to look up strange starling activity on the internet but couldn't find anything to explain this.

What I did find however, was an article on the RSPB website warning  that we're not the only ones that will have a shock in store once 'winter' as we know it, finally arrives with a vengeance this week.

Garden birds will have a rude awakening too the wildlife charity says, but they don't have the luxury of turning up the heating or putting on an extra coat.
Instead, they will start to rely on the goodwill of gardeners and householders, and the RSPB is asking everyone to consider putting out extra supplies of food and water.

So, if like me you enjoy your feathered friends, please remember to feed the birds.

The Big Knit 2011

For the Big Knit, Age UK and innocent ask knitters of all ages to get creative and come up with their own designs for mini-woolly hats to be placed on top of their smoothie bottles and sold in Boots and Sainsbury's stores throughout November. For each hatted bottle sold, 25p is donated to Age UK to help make winter warmer for older people across the UK.

I've been busy knitting for the past few months and donated all my wooly hats to Age UK in October.  Imagine my surprise on Friday night whilst shopping in my local Sainsburys to find one of the hats I knitted sitting proudly on top of an innocent smoothie bottle!!

That's My Hat!

I felt compelled to buy it, now its sitting at home in my fridge.  I wonder if any other big knitters out there have found their own hats sitting on a supermarket shelf?

Nature always delivers

Some photos from my afternoon dog walk, observing patterns in nature

Beautiful Autumn Leaves

Flowering Ivy

Berries

Heart Shape Leaf

Pattern Love

After much ummming and ahhhing, followed by crystal dowsing, I decided to sign up for the Beth Nicholls's The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design -  featuring Rachael Taylor.  I'm pleased I did. Although my eyes are getting boggled as you quickly start to notice patterns & textures everywhere!  Here's a selection of squares and patterns I noticed around the house this morning:

Partial pattern from a fairy picture

Mosiac t-light holder

Negative Squares

On a totally random theme, I noticed a shadow on my bedroom wall this morning, couldn't resist taking this and applying a few photo edits!

It's a nice sunny day today, so I will be taking my camera out with me on my afternoon  dog walk, can't wait to see what patterns I see in Mother Nature.

An Appointment With The Waterboys

I have an appointment with The Waterboys in April 2012, Jenna and I are going to see them in Dublin!! We could have seen them play locally at Bridgewater Hall, Manchester as part of the Appointment With Mr Yeats tour, BUT, as Jenna turns 18 on March 26th, she really wants to go to Dublin and she likes The Waterboys, the Universe appears to have offered us an invitation to some Irish magic.  I would be mad as the mist and snow not to accept.  Talking of mad as the mist and snow, here is the The Waterboys playing this little tune on Later Live with Jools Holland.....I fell in love with The Waterboys and Mike Scott (lead singer) when I first saw them live in 1986.  25 years later and they are still rocking with amazing energy, I'm still in love with Mike Scott and he is such a great example of someone who is doing What They Love.  

Reflections

I've been busy reflecting! I've just completed the first week of Susan Conway's Unravelling e-course which encourages you to think about how often we see ourselves reflected back in our everyday lives, Vivienne McMaster's e-course Wading In is about Self Portraiture, and, I'm back at College continuing with my studies to become a Counsellor, which includes alot of reflective work through keeping a learning journal.  Anyhow, I'm very happy with this self portrait I took earlier this week:

As a trainee counsellor, I am required to undergo 10 hours of my own personal therapy, I had my first session on Thursday, and something very useful came out of it.  I felt unable to destroy some old school reports written about me in Junior School, my counsellor reflected back that they seemed to be holding some power over me.  I thought about this, how could I release the grip they held over me? Shredding them didn't seem appropriate but transforming them into something more useful did.  So, I picked up a pencil and began drawing random shapes over the reports then cut the shapes out. Unconsciously I had drawn a bird like shape.  I collaged the bird onto my self portrait picture and wrote the following quote onto the bird "Life is like photography, we use our negatives to develop". Stuck a few negatives around the picture and "voila" - I have transformed the negatives from an old school report into something postive with a bit of Art Therapy!  I found another bird shape so I have kept that to use in a later project, and the rest I was happy to throw away.

Life is like photography, we use our negatives to develop

I feel much lighter after doing this piece of work & I read this this today from The Daily Love - " so many of us lead our lives holding on so tightly that nothing new, nothing miraculous can find us" - how true. 

 

Indian Summer

We appear to be experiencing an Indian Summer in the lateness of September 2011 - and so I am savouring the sunshine, a little like the last of the summer wine. 

Images for the day 28th September 2011

Faery Squash

Inspired by the Experimental Art assignment, I've been messing around with watercolours to create staining/mark making. Also inspired by faeries and autumn leaves here is my playful offering: