Let the beauty we love be what we do. 

There are hundreds of ways to kneel & kiss the earth.

~Rumi~

Human Elephant Foundation

Thanks to Ruthie for pointing me in the direction of the Human Elephant Foundation. The home page images of elephant sculptures in situ are amazing. Andries Botha creates life-sized sculptures made from recycled materials, which are situated in various locations worldwide.

The elephant is a metaphor that awakens the yearning for forgotten conversations between humans, the Earth and all living things.

~Andries Botha

The foundation aims...

... to encourage every person to do something meaningful with his or her life. It can be something small at home. Or a major global solution. Something personal or something collaborative. Whatever it is, it should be life affirming, and it should be a worthy legacy to leave the next generation.

It is well worth a visit http://www.humanelephant.org  

Brush Textures

There's something satisfying about just playing 

with textures & layout without using words...

white on black always looks dramatic.... 

a little silver powder is dropped into wet paint on the top one...

 a single chinese or japanese calligraphy brush gives a variety 

of stroke widths depending how you use it..

as well as being visually pleasing, they also serve as inspiration 

for layouts to use with words at some future date...

Forever...

...today starts the real journey...

The first phrase of a poem written by S for his beloved... and having spent time composing her a tender expression of their relationship he wanted a special way of presenting it to her & liked the idea of a canvas. Three kinds of butterfly are mentioned though we didn't want them representing directly...

...perhaps using the textures of earlier work

 Or maybe using patterns of butterfly wings...

I don't really present my ideas very well. I'm either working on a piece 'properly' or I'm not, and I'm sure S wondered at what he would get after seeing my initial thoughts that I don't think he wasn't particularly impressed with! Once I started working though, things came together... layers of colour first, then some black, and a bit more colour lashed on quite thick & scraped off & back on again & scrunched with cling film...

Dr Martins Bleedproof white is a good solid white that stands out beautifully on a dark background... I didn't want the lines of text to be too rigid so let them drift a bit....

It could have been finished at this point, but I felt it needed a little something... so i went back to the butterfly wing snippets and scattered them in the space that needed filling.

Even if you thought the first photo was ok, you can see that the final three squares make all the difference. S approved...

Oh My its awesome!!!!

I absolutely love it Suzi…you are going to make a woman cry! 

And it seemed that she liked it too...

Suzi you made  pretty girl cry like forever...

It seems like part of my job description is to make people cry!!

The Etsy app

My sister has informed me that she now knows how often I add anything new in my shops... yes she's checking up on me to make sure I do as much work as I say I do.... she's got an app for her phone...

If you want an app to keep an eye on your favourite etsy shops all you have to do to get one is go here

You can read about it here.
I'm still in the dark ages.
I just have a phone to make calls.

Ocean Loving Bookworm...

Did you know that "bookworm" in Finnish is "kirjatoukka"? or that in French it is "rat de biblioteque" ie library rat? Well now you do... It's written here on an old dictionary page that includes the  french/english translation

And did you know "merisielu" in Finnish translates as "ocean soul"... someone who has a deep affinity for the sea & is at home there. The french/english translation for 'ocean' is on this page. I like the idea of there being a word on the printed page that relates to what I may write.

I get led on some fascinating journeys of discovery as I follow clues in the requests I get. As I double checked the definitions I'd been given I found these lyrics... 

Merisielu

Yksi yö lisää

Sietää tämä painajainen

Mitä muuta minun täytyy sanoa

Itku vuokseni ei koskaan ollu kyyneleen arvoinen

Yksinäinen sieluni on ainoastaa pelolla täytetty

Pitkät tunnit yksinäisyyden

Välissä minun ja meren

Tunteen kadotus

Antaumuksen löytäminen

Tulisiko minun puketua valkoiseen ja etsiä merta

Kuten olen aina toivonut - Yhtä aaltojen kanssa

Merisielu

Kulkien vuorovesilinjaa

Kuulen nimesi

Enkelitkö kuiskailevat

Jotain niin kaunista joka satuttaa

Toivoin ainoastaan tulevani joksikin kauniiksi

Lävitse musiikkini, lävitse hiljaisen antaumukseni.

Ocean Soul

One more night

To bear this nightmare

What more do I have to say

Crying for me was never worth a tear

My lonely soul is only filled with fear

Long hours of loneliness

Between me and the sea

Losing emotion

Finding devotion

Should I dress in white and search the sea

As I always wished to be - one with the waves

Ocean Soul

Walking the tideline

I hear your name

Is angels wispering

Something so beautiful it hurts

I only wished to become something beautiful

Through my music, through my silent devotion

One day I will just have to do a full piece with these.... especially after reading more about Tuomas Holopainen who wrote them...

~ tuomas holopainen ~ 

sorry for that little distraction *sigh*

back to book pages...

The first drafts were with watercolour: I like the muted tones with my photograph of old book spines... I think it conjures up the image of an old library or study, walls lined with bookshelves...& the unique scent as you turn ancient pages...

I was just looking back at the title & thought..

 Ocean loving bookworm, gsoh, wltm... 

there's my lonely hearts ad started if I ever need one!

How would your ad go?

What's The Life Of A Man?

What sort of gift do you give to someone recently bereaved? Well, it does depend how well you know them, but after hugs, poetry & songs are high on the list. It takes some thought to know or to find those words that are meaningful to a particular person and I think that it is that thought rather than the means of presentation that can be so much appreciated. Obviously presentation is a part of it, and I can help with that bit, but the sentiment... the feeling... the love, that is behind a gift such as this that really makes it special.

R chose words from a version of a traditional folk song that was both meaningful & a favourite. She had an idea of greens, some leaves and a bit of copper & was happy for me to decide what would look best. 

What's the Life of a Man?

As I was a walking one morning at ease

A viewing the leaves as they fell from the trees

All in slow motion appearing to be

And those that had withered, they fell from the trees

What's the life of a man anymore than the leaves

A man has his season, so why should we grieve

Though all thru this life, we appear fine and gay

Like the leaves we will wither and soon fade away

If you'd seen the leaves just a few days ago

So beautiful and bright they all seemed to grow

A frost came upon them and withered them all

A storm came upon them and down they did fall

If you look in the churchyard, there you will see

Those that have passed like the leaves from the trees

When age and affliction upon us do fall

Like the leaves we must wither and down we must fall

After a few false starts, I eventually decided on muted shades of green watercolour for the calligraphy... various tones reflecting the changing hues we see in nature... with embossed leaves falling down one side & settling across the bottom. One sycamore leaf was covered with copper... almost like a full stop, marking the end of one man's life here on earth.

this piece is available here

I tried another layout too... this time with leaves mainly across the bottom & a few at either side... in this version, 2 of the leaves are enhanced with copper. To me this represents two people... it could be two people who have passed on, or the link between two people, one living, one gone...

The technique I used for the leaves is called 'dry embossing'. Outlines of several different leaf types were drawn on card & cut out with a scalpel... I then used an embossing tool, pressing the paper through from the back of the calligraphy into the cut out shapes. When the paper is turned back over, the leaves are raised, forming a lovely subtle pattern. I love the textures that arose on both pieces...

Embossing is so subtle... minimal... white leaves embossed into white paper.... that seem to shift slightly throughout the day as light plays across the surface.... like i said, subtle.... the translucent tones of the watercolour change almost imperceptibly throughout the lettering.... and the copper leaves catch the light differently as well, so this becomes a living, subtly changing piece of work....

Forever Young Revisited

When I was doing the latest Forever Young canvas (back here) I dug out some old photos of a version I did years ago.... 1999 I think. Rolling back the years or what??!! This was for  21st birthday present and it had to be on black, which is always awkward to photograph.

This was on calico stretched over a wooden frame.... a blend of blues verging towards black with blues & purples for the calligraphy.... patches of gold leaf with lettering scratched into them... I really like working on fabric... the colour blends in a totally different way compared to on the bought ready stretched & sized canvasses.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been a while.... a rush of December orders.... dearest beloved at home for a month over Christmas... just got totally out of the habit again!

Captain Corelli in Purple!

This was to be an anniversary scroll, using a reading from the wedding....

You can see from these two photographs how difficult it can be to match a colour from a picture. I had a photograph of a lovely bride wearing what she called 'mauve'.... which was a different tone from what I would call mauve. And so I used a variety of shades in the decoration of this piece... little pastel squares drifting over the page.... 

It is to be framed in a 12 x 12 inch frame, but we weren't sure whether the ribbon would be included inside the frame or not.... so, I left extra space at the top allowing the scroll to be trimmed from either top or bottom (or both) to fit.

If you would like to commission an original version for yourself just get in touch> suziscribbles at yahoo.co.uk, or take a look in my etsy shop where I also have some prints available> here

Cloths of Heaven

 Canvas size: 10 x 12 x 1.75 inches / 25 x 30 x 3 cm

The Cloths of Heaven by WB Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

available to purchase in here the shop

I've used gold gouache for the lettering with splashes of gold & silver powder & paint. Aluminium leaf, 22ct gold leaf, & metal leaf form a textural strip of 'cloth'. The layered dark blues form a midnight blue backdrop.